Linking Points / Books

[Egon]

Hi all.

I swear that someday, I had stumble upon website, on which rules of naming conventions of Linking Points in Ahra Pahts where described.
Does such site exists, or my memory just plays trick on me?

That I would like to do is to modify my Offilne-KI config files ("AvailableLinks.inf" and "ULMServerLinkBook.inf") so I could have books which links directly to Ahra Pahts Nexus, and to a linking book wich is closest to my Shell.

BTW:
Oolbahnneea, Sonavio, TaklaMakan are very good ages, but what they got what Ahra Pahts doesn't ?
(I'm referring to the fact that Ofline-KI does not put linking book to Ahra Pahts on Relto bookshelf in default configuration)

[The.Modificator]

Using the mysterious feature called "search" usually helps...

http://guildofwriters.com/wiki/AhraPahts_Shells
http://guildofwriters.com/wiki/AhraPahts_LIP

[Egon]

Well first of all:

Thank You.

Second: I hate when people say stuff like "Using the mysterious feature called "search" usually helps... " because it suggest what I ddin't look by my self. But I forgive You since You actually provide links

Third: Hmm... And that are the names to city Hub-Up, Hub-down, and city Nexus?

[Robert The Rebuilder]

Hi Egon:

We do have a page describing naming conventions and other helpful suggestions on the Shell Submission Check List.

I'm afraid I'm not sure how to modify the offline KI data files to get Ahra Pahts on your bookshelves. You could try sending a PM to diafero for guidance.

[Egon]

I'm afraid I'm not sure how to modify the offline KI data files to get Ahra Pahts on your bookshelves.

That was an easy part. You go to your URU:CC/POTS directory, beckoup "ULMServerLinkBook.inf" file, open it end replace for example:

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[Book 17]
cover:Crowthistle
link:,Crowthistle ages,These ages were created by Cyan for a book called "Crowthistle - The Well of Tears". While they have no interactive elements at all; they look great and are a pleasure to visit.
link:MarshScene,The Great Marsh,A beautiful lake scenery with docks and huts.,checkAvailable
link:MountainScene,Rowan Green,,A nice little village in the sunset.,checkAvailable

with

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[Book 17]
cover:Crowthistle
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts
link:Pahts,Shell 437,lpc437,Pahts,,(default)

I leave "cover:Crowthistle" because there is no cover for AhraPahts made (yet). "link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts" - I made base on http://alcugs.almlys.org/Offline-KI/TechnicalDocumentation.
"link:Pahts,Shell 437,lpc437,Pahts,,(default)" I made base on The.Modificator link http://guildofwriters.com/wiki/AhraPahts_LIP.
Thing is: it dose not work. I get link to Ahra Pahts, but only "common part of age" is being load (only streets, no shells).
Not to mention: ther is no info about naming conventions of linking points to Prin (Nexus), and Hub.

[diafero]

That second link line looks correct, and if you arrive at the right position in the age it obviously works. The first one will bring you to the main link-in point - you don't have to add it, just using the second "link:" line should also work.
Pahts uses a quite complicated mechanism to only load the parts of the age that you can currently see, and that mechanism obviously fails to detect where you are (which is then no longer an Offline KI issue but an Ahra Pahts issue). Are you sure you have the latest version of Pahts, especially of it's Python file, installed?

EDIT: That linking definition you wrote would be easier written like this:

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link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpc437,Link to Shell 437 in Ahra Pahts,

Meaning: the age filename is Pahts, the name visible in the KI is "Ahra Pahts", the link-in point is "lpc437", the description shown in the book is "Link to Shell 437 in Ahra Pahts" and there is no condition for the book to be shown (nothing after the last comma) - offline, it will always check if the age file exists, online, you can toggle that with the "checkAvailable" option.

[Egon]

I get link to Ahra Pahts, but only "common part of age" is being load (only streets, no shells).

So it turns out it was my mistake. I didn't read carefully page http://guildofwriters.com/wiki/AhraPahts_Shells, and didn't notice "LIP Number" column.

So instead of "lpc437" I should use "lpc414". Meanwhile I decompile Pahts Python files in order to get around naming conventions of linking points,
and started to use ELF Viewer to check out communications printed by the code while linking.

That way I got info that "lpc100" and "lpc101" are linking points to main city Hub (pretty useful )

The first one will bring you to the main link-in point - you don't have to add it, just using the second "link:" line should also work.

Well, I did fail to mention what I try to accomplish is a book on the shelf which has a few links:
- on first page a default linking point
- on second link to Ahra Pin
- on third link to Main Hub - up part
- on four link main hub - down part
- on fifth link to my shell

Now my config file looks like this:

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[Book 16]
cover:Crowthistle
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,LinkInPointDefault,Pahts,(default)
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpn414,Ahra Prin
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpc101,Hub Up
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpc100,Hub Down
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpc414,Shell 437

Every link is working except "link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpn414,Ahra Prin". Still trying to figure out naming conventions for Prin links.
According to my understanding of Python files "lpn414" should work fine. And I got linking to some place underneath city, but again I just see only city streets.
Adding You quote:

Pahts uses a quite complicated mechanism to only load the parts of the age that you can currently see, and that mechanism obviously fails to detect where you are (which is then no longer an Offline KI issue but an Ahra Pahts issue).

It might be the case that Alcugs (or someone else who made those loading objects scripts) didn't estimate that someone will try to link directly to Ahra Pin outside of the main city.

[diafero]

Alcugs is originally the name of a project (see http://alcugs.almlys.org/Alcugs ) which is now usually referenced to as "Alcugs servers", because other projects are hosted or at least have their information on the Alcugs site, too (most notably Drizzle and Offline KI). The pyprp plugin also originated there. It's not the name of a person though, the person behind the original plugin and server and the site is Almlys. The servers are currently maintained by me, and the plugin is developed by a bunch of people which usually can be found here at the GoW.

However, the Pahts Python was - as far as I remember - written by Aloys, and also hacked on by Robert the Rebuilder. Please correct me if I am wrong. Yeah, that's a whole lot of names and it'll take you some time not to mix them up

The linking lines you wrote should not behave the way you expect - if there are just 4 items in the line, Offline KI interprets them as

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link:agefilename,agefullname[,description[,condition]]

so the LinkIn-Point is not changed (left at default). It's only with five items that the LinkIn-Point is read:

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link:agefilename,agefullname,linkinpoint,description,condition

where the condition can be empty, leading to the trailing "," which you omitted. There is also a six-item form:

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link:agefilename,agefullname,linkinpoint,description,imagename,condition

but the image name will be ignored. The reason for this weird format is that it tries to keep compatibility with the old ULM format and one or two other formats I added in the mean time without thinking about the LinkIn-Point as I never had to change it . I will clarify the wiki page on this.

[Egon]

Alcugs is originally the name of a project...the person behind the original plugin and server and the site is Almlys

But You got to admit: Alcugs and Almlys looks similar.
But still: sorry Almlys.

The linking lines you wrote should not behave the way you expect

Actually, I writed them like this:

[Book 16]
cover:Crowthistle
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,LinkInPointDefault,Pahts,
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpc100,Hub Down,
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpc101,Hub Up,
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpn414,Ahra Prin,
link:Pahts,Ahra Pahts,lpc414,Shell 437,

So I think that I luckily fitted into "link:agefilename,agefullname,linkinpoint,description,condition" format.

[Egon]

So I got tired of watching a Crowthistle cover on Ahra book, so i made up my own cover for Ahra Pahts.
I would uploaded it to Wiki, but I got error:

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Internal error - The upload directory (public) is not writable by the webserver. 

so I upload it as attachment to post.

Hope someone else would like it also.