ReadMe

[456820]

Ive just been thinking a few things about the readmes of missions and campaigns

1. Everyone uses notepad or save it as a .txt for their readmes is this necesary ? I feel a .html would be better since its easier to read IMO and you can link to pages which make finding sections easier and you can add pics to it aswell and so on
But does it need to be a .txt ? or can it be a .html instead ?

2. What makes a readme stand out above the rest ?

Oh and one last question
How could you get a high score for Overviews in camapigns since they generally have no text none of the official ones did.
So is it just marked on the photos ? or can there be other things

Thanks

[Baddo]

I so much agree with you!

 

HTML files are much better for a readme, for the reasons you mentioned. Who can stop you from raising the quality level of your own submissions?

Just be sure that you are not using too fancy things in your HTML code so everyones browsers will be able to display them correctly. Follow HTML standards, use for example HTML Tidy to keep the code as correct as possible. Preview your HTML readme in different browsers to be sure that they don't completely ruin it, like for example the buggy Internet Explorer often does when HTML pages are written as the standard says.

Do it, please.

P.S. Many HTML editors have HTML Tidy integrated into them so no need to run it from the command line.

[macguba]

1.  Yes html is fine but keep it simple and test it thoroughly.   A readme is no good if somebody can't read it.   And keep it small:  pics are tempting but can rapidly make for an unneccessarily big file.

2.  Clarity, simplicity and relevance.

3.  To make a good Overview first of all you need to get the technicalities right: a decent picture (good composition and so on) with a good border, and the right amount of relevant text.    However, a really good Overview is one that grabs you:  makes you think "Wow!  I want to play this."

Once upon a time a famous short story writer came to speak to an English class.    "The things that make a good short story", he said, "are brevity; mystery; religion; aristocracy and sex".    After he had gone, the teacher set the obvious task - write a good short story.     30 seconds later somebody put up their hand.   "I've finished!"  he cried.    The teacher was outraged - you can't possibly write a good short story so quickly - and ordered the student to read the story to the class.      

"Oh God!" said the Duchess, "I'm pregnant.    I wonder whodunnit?"

Writing a good Overview is much harder than this of course, because not only must it be a good short story on its own merits, but it must also urgently convey the message that the mission is an even better story.

And in a campaign, naturally you have to do all this with a picture alone.   That is one of the reasons that mission making - good mission making - is hard.

[yankme]

ooohhhhhhhh  NO ,, another standard. my readme's are bad enough now!    ;D  gee it was tuff enough til 456820 came allong

[456820]

thanks guys i get it now since i prefer to make a .html readme then a text for some reason
But the high file size isnt really much of a problem when your campaign is over 35odd MB  
It may be big but hopefully it will be worth it and its still growing in size but theres only the editor update needed so theres no downloading addons which are over 70mb

Anyway thanks since its a campaign overview i dont need any text since i think it just looks messy since you get less room to work with so im leaving the text out but i can alwayslook over my pics

anyway cheers ill leave te topic unsolved incase other people have things to add

[Artak]

To make it perfectly clear:

txt readme's will remain mandatory

html readme's can be included

So, you MUST include a missionname_readme.txt, but also you CAN include a html version if you want to.

[yankme]

i think its a good idea, give the author a nice chance to " get his book published " ! lots of times you see advertisments for a movie and you want to see it straight away. also we do like to have good idea of the settings more then the ol' year, weather, time, or like my missions "theres a T80 over there>" with a champain i think it will be something all authors will be doing before long. but like macguba basicely said, you can give to much info, but you have to leave them hanging!

BUT can administration make it clear that in no means are authors able to have adds for up comming champains like the 7min of G rated movies before the movie starts  ;D

[456820]

well ive started on my readme its got lots of things
- Some little info on the campaign
- Addon requirements
- Installation
- The plot of the campaign
- Special Features of the campaign
- A warning about using mods
- Credits
- Mission Tips/hints on how to complete them if you get stuck
- disclaimer
- And i nice little picture

Anything else to add i want it to be full of lots of detail anything else you can think of adding tkaing out etc etc.
Cheers

Ill also start work on a .txt one
Also about the name
missionname_readme.txt

how about initianls of the campaign since they tend to have longer names
like
ORO_readme.txt
instead of
OperationReinstatingOrder_readme.txt

Since that ones a little long

[dmakatra]

Ah, don't spend your time on writing long readmes, just add what is required for the mission to be considered valid. Nobody reads readmes anyhow. I know I don't.

And what do you mean by "How could you get a high score for Overviews in camapigns since they generally have no text none of the official ones did."? Since when have we followed BIS? If we'd still be on BIS-level in mission editing we'd all be running round capturing and defending towns. All the fancy stuff like custom platoon scripts and stuff like that wouldn't be round since "none of the official ones did". You go do your campaign overviews just as fancy as standard single mission overviews with text, links, pics, bling-blings and what not.

[macguba]

Forgot to post this link.

http://www.ofpec.com/missions/readme.php

Initials for readme names are no good.   The whole point of including the name is to get the readme next to the mission when all files in the directory are sorted in alphabetical order.     Long filenames are not a big issue.