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New liveries, where to publish?

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New liveries, where to publish?

Postby flycanarias » Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:34 pm

Hello Folks,
I have some liveries to publish you might like, just as 707, 727, 733, 744, 763ER Condor liveries, and one for the ATR 72 (omega), Canaryfly...
Where should I publish them, since the Database isn't occupied any more...??
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby D-ECHO » Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:46 pm

I guess priority should have to re-occupy the database, I would volunteer to do so, if someone explains to me what to do and tells me who to contact?
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby flycanarias » Sat Oct 29, 2016 3:34 pm

Yes, a discussion takes place at the livery database thread by Gijs, let's move it up to there!
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Improvement of the AI Traffic for the Canary Islands Region
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About to open a Binter Canarias VA
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby Lydiot » Sat Oct 29, 2016 3:50 pm

Several people have volunteered to help maintain the livery database. Heck, I can probably volunteer as well as long as someone tells me what to do and whom to contact.

We've seen absolutely nothing come of these offers though sadly. People volunteer, then nothing. Last update was over half a year ago.

There are alternatives of course.
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby Gijs » Sat Oct 29, 2016 6:40 pm

Hi guys,

Let me first apologise for not keeping the database up to date. The database was designed by me over the course of several years, bit by bit, while teaching myself how to program in the mean time. It has now become a collection of rather exotic and not very structured bits that cannot be simply transfered to someone else. Having more people in the role of validators (similar to the scenery database) would've been nice, but not possible without a major rewrite. One of the reasons this never happened is that we had a new way of distributing aircraft and other addons coming up that would affect liveries as well. As we all know this took longer than expected, so in the end I kept on postponing a rewrite.

Nowadays you can argue whether we still need the database at all. The aircraft distribution system has improved so much. Unlike back in the days when the database was set up, there's no need for anyone to download all liveries, just because they were in the repository. Packaging liveries together with the aircraft has a couple of big advantages. Including but not limited to the following. Aircraft authors can directly commit new liveries, lowering the workload and speeding up the whole process. Users get all the liveries right when they download the aircraft. Updates are also nicely handled by the packager, so in case an aircraft model is updated the liveries can be updated at the same time to make sure they still match.

The only real disadvantage is that it will increase the download size of an aircraft (in some cases considerably). Having a seperate feature in the package manager for liveries would be a possible solution to that, but it may add too much complexity for little fain. I'll be discussing that with James (the main developer of the package manager) next weekend at FSweekend.

Rest assured I'll make sure all liveries end up where they belong (wherever that may be). All contributions, including those not yet showing up in the database, have been stored and backed up. Once we have made a decision on how to proceed I will process them.

As always I'm open to ideas and comments.

Cheers,
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby Lydiot » Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:13 pm

Ok, well then either flycanarias creates his own repo then or he can use FGMembers, since I'm not seeing a solution for now in this thread. Would that be a correct assessment?
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby Necolatis » Sat Oct 29, 2016 9:36 pm

Why don't you contact the maintainers of those planes in FGAddon and just get them to include your liveries in the standard package, seem easier to me than making your own repo.
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby D-ECHO » Sat Oct 29, 2016 10:47 pm

Flycanarias, i'd recommend to first wait what new ideas and decisions come up on the fsweekend. After that you can decide whether you want to wait longer, contact the original author, maybe get direct commit access as a liverty creator to fgaddon?
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby flycanarias » Sun Oct 30, 2016 12:34 am

Well,
first, thank you for your responses to my post...
To make my own repository only featuring my liveries is a solution, but it's harder to find for other users, so a direct contribution to the plane's git repo makes most sense as a short term solution.
But, now to Gijs' answer, I personally like the idea of the liveries being stored and ready to download at one place, as it was the Database. For many average users, searching liveries and airplanes in lots of different places, webpages and repos is very complicated, I would really like to see this simplified. It is as well a stable platform for Livery-makers.

The livery database was and is the only Flightgear-Page, where nearly everything which is available concerning liveries is at one place, ready to download and easy accessible.

You want a livery? Go and look at the database, if it's not there, it doesn't exist in many cases.

This is what we need with aircraft as well, a webpage where every aircraft model is shown, described and accessible for download. Not hours of searching on the forum, or at GitHub. A webpage, where developers can send their planes to, and where they are uploaded, easy to download and that's it.
I know that this is a lot of maintenance stuff, but as we see so many volunteers, maybe we can simplify the whole community like this, and make it easier, clearer and more efficient.
Maybe that would be the solution.
Again, thanks for your responses,

flycanarias
Canary Islands Custom Scenery
Improvement of the AI Traffic for the Canary Islands Region
RoutePlans for the Eastern Atlantic (Azores, Madeira, Cap Verde, Canaries)
About to open a Binter Canarias VA
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby D-ECHO » Sun Oct 30, 2016 5:23 am

Flycanarias, i think fgaddon is Kind of exactly what you are describing. It is a svn Repo where you can get access to when you have a plane to put there and where users can download all Planes from inside the Simulator
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby lomar » Tue Dec 13, 2016 1:56 am

I see that this topic has not been touched for quite some time by now, but i wanted to give my (unasked) opinion.
I think that the database is a necessary tool for the project, as packaging liveries together in the aircraft repository wont cover every single case. i.e. some aircraft are unmaintained for a long time, and others don't have a repository at all. so, what would we do in these cases?
Therefore, the database gives also a sense of authority to livery makers, as you can always know the author of a livery there. This would not be possible if liveries were put together with aircraft repositories.
And at last, FG users can learn lots of things when seaching liveries there. I myself have discovered lots of different aircraft models and airlines(not to mention special liveries and its stories) while doing so that i would never bother to look for if i havent seen them in the database.
i agree that things have changed since the beginings of all the stuff involving Flightgear, but the database is still a good idea. Of course new ideas should always be taken in consideration to improve the things, but we should not forget what brought us so far.
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Re: New liveries, where to publish?

Postby themadgreek » Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:46 am

I agree with @lomar, I see quite a bit of value in the database, despite the trend of aircraft including all liveries (recently stumbled upon a 350mb+ aircraft...).

For example, the other day someone here was asking for Gulf Air liveries. Now, without the database, you would just have to know which aircraft have it, which is not ideal. With the database, a few clicks and you see all the planes with the livery. Is this a major need for FlightGear? No. Is it useful? I would say yes, for this example and for a lot of others too.

It's unfortunate that it would take a major rewrite to add more "validators", but that's the reality. Would it be worth transitioning to a git / svn solution with an autogenerated website? Would it be worth coming up with a potential spec of what this would look like?

Keen to hear the thoughts of members with more FG experience than myself.

P.S. is the source code for the livery database open source?
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