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Novice Joined: 09 Feb 2001 Posts: 42

Only reason I want to use zExplorer is to compare my custom ac explorer database with spedia database which I can't run more then 1 ac explorer at a time seems like. So AcExplorer and zExplorer will have to do if i can get zExplorer to work right.

The update file button pretty much only d/l entry i think past the LastDate= in the places.ini file. So could there be a full update button possibly?

Is there a way to convert the AcExplorer Database to ZExplorer?

The search function only really worth using for searching the name of an item not what notes are posted about it or anything seems like. I tried searching for my name nothing came up I tried searching for 2003 nothing came up. I did a search for 9/21/2003 an entry came up.

The show suspect locations option doesn't stay checked when you press ok.

Are you hosting a outdated places.mdb? Is that why I have text in the edit window? Is there a way to do a full update on spedia database to replace this one? That or if that db has special formating, is it possible to just delete the entrys to the places that show up on map.

In the zExplorer.ini file [MapToolbarsLogoWin] and the [MapToolbarsMenuToolbar] is there a way to lock them from accidently moving them when acexplorer/zexplorer is running? I had to disable the LogoWin because I would sometimes move one and it would go into a new row.

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 7:25 pm

The updating in zExplorer and AC Explorer work in a totally different way because of the totally different file format. zExplorer uses a real SQL database for the locations. When you first use zExplorer, it downloads the full database file from the site. From then on, the Update function will download record updates to that database. So, there is really no way to do an "update all" other than deleting your *.MDB database file and letting zExplorer re-download the full file, then apply the updates again.

There isn't any general way to convert the AC Explorer database to the zExplorer format. However, the ZSCONVERT.EXE program that comes with zMUD and zMapper has an option for converting the places.dat file into a zExplorer database. This is how I initially created a test database file for zExplorer. But this program and method is not supported and while it worked when I originally used it to create zExplorer, it might not work on the latest version of zExplorer.

The search function only searches the "text" of the notes. It does not search the name of the user, nor the date. In particular, zExplorer has no knowledge of the name of the person who adds a note. All it has is the "UserID" field for the user so that it can determine if you are the same user that added the note.

Some of the notes are populated with data from the ACSpedia database and might include dates or names, but not all notes have this information.

As far as I know, zExplorer doesn't have a "Show Suspect" option. The "Suspect" flag from the old AC Explorer is not part of the new database format for zExplorer.

As I mentioned, the places.mdb file that you intially download when you run zExplorer is from a certain old date. Then you Update the data and the latest information from the AC Spedia database is added to the database. Be sure you are using the latest 4.10 version of zExplorer as the older versions had a bug in the update option that didn't handle the LastUpdate date properly.

Remember that you are working with a LOCAL SQL database (your places.mdb file). If you delete a record from this file and then the record is later update on the remote AC Spedia database, then the record will reappear in your local file when you use the Update Option. The Delete button in the Edit tab actually just marks the record as deleted rather than removing it so that this won't happen, so be sure to use the Delete function within zExplorer itself.

You currently cannot "lock" the toolbars.