Qhimm.com Forums
Miscellaneous Forums => Tools => Topic started by: Covarr on 2014-07-17 19:23:39
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I've just spent a little over an hour cleaning up the Tools section of the forum. It was quite a mess. If people make sure to follow these guidelines when making new threads in this section, it should make tools easier to find and generally improve things for everyone.
What belongs in Tools?
Please only create a new thread in this section if you have a tool ready to release. If you're still doing research into formats or something similar, consider posting in Scripting and Reverse Engineering (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?board=4.0) instead. If you have a question or request, post it in General Discussion (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?board=1.0).
Tools Subforums
There are subforums for FF7, FF8, and FF9 tools. Put your tools thread in the appropriate subforum for the game it supports. If it supports a different game, or more than one game, put it into Misc. Tools
Thread naming
I renamed every thread in this section to be consistent. Hopefully this will make it more obvious what a tool does, and make things easier to find. If you make a new Tools thread, try to format your thread title like this:
[GAME VERSION] Tool Description - Tool Name (Version)
- GAME VERSION - What version of the game does your tool support?. Good things to put here include [PC], [Steam], [PSX/PC], [PC98]. If you're posting in the Misc. Tools section, make sure to specify the game as well, such as [FFX], [FF7/FF8][PSX] as well. If your tool is game-agnostic, such as HextLaunch, put [N/A].
- Tool Description - What does your tool do? We don't need a full feature list, but try to put enough that we can get the gist of it. "Field Editor", "Model Importer" are good examples. If your tool's name makes it obvious what it does, such as "FF7 Trainer" or "Model Exporter", you can omit the description. If you name your tool "Rainbow Chocobo" or "Ochu" or something else that doesn't make its functionality clear, you must include a description here.
- Tool Name - This should be self-evident. If your tool doesn't have a name, you can use the description alone.
- Version - Format this however you want. You can put Alpha, 3.4b, WIP, v7... it doesn't really matter. If your tool doesn't have a version number, I recommend putting a date here instead. If you choose to put a date, PLEASE USE ISO DATE FORMAT (http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/iso-date) (YYYY-MM-DD). We've got people from all over the world on these forums, and the date format that makes sense to you may confuse someone else. Of course, if you use actual version numbers, this won't be an issue. Also, "Final" is not a version number; I've seen "final" projects continue to receive updates before, and you risk embarrassing yourself if you call a project final and then need to update it later. Just use a date.
Good thread name examples:
[PC] Battle trainer - Corneo (v0.7b)
[PSX/PC] Texture Replacer - Selphie (2014-07-17)
[FF4SNES] SaveEdit (beta 1)
Bad thread name examples (DON'T DO THIS):
Spell Editor for FF7 (while it's clear, it doesn't even attempt to follow the format, and makes it harder to scan through a list of threads. Without a version, people can't see easily whether it's been updated)
[REL][FF6] Battle editor - Gray Chocobo (1.8.5) ([REL] isn't helpful, since only releases are allowed in Tools anyway)
Model Replacer - Hind D (WIP 2) (What game is this for? Is it FF7 or FF8? If I saw this, I might even guess Metal Gear based on this name.)
[PC] Editor - Huge Materia (0.7a) (The description needs to be descriptive. This is an editor, but what does it edit? Dialogue? Models? AI?)
[FF7] File extractor (5/8/14) (It needs to say whether it supports [PC] or [PSX] or both. Also, the date is formatted wrong; it's unclear if this is August 5 or May 8 due to regional differences.)
[PC] Texture Replacer - Lucrecia (Final Version) (Seriously, do not user "Final Version" as a version number. Ever. You may find it turns out not to be the final version later on.)
What if I see a misnamed or misplaced thread?
Report it or send me a PM. Do not post in the thread itself; this is unproductive.
If everyone follows these instructions, I think it's safe to say existing tools will be much easier to find, and confusion will be minimized. Thanks for cooperating!
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Let me be the first to say thank you.
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You're quite welcome.
Eventually I also plan on making similar stickies in the other release boards (graphical releases, audio releases, etc). I'm mostly just fed up with how annoying it is to find stuff, or to figure out what something does -- sometimes even the thread itself doesn't explain what something is for. But for now, Tools seemed to need it the most.
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Thanks for doing this. I like the idea. I'll rename my topics to help get the trend going in the other sections.
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Got it!
(http://i.imgur.com/a65km70.jpg)