I created a new tool for registering components on my GetMod service but this time it should be much less confusing then all the other methods. The process goes like this. 1: Download some components that you want to use on your server and then install them with the Mod Manager. 2: Run my tool and log it in with your GetMod account. 3: The tool will list all your "Installed" components. Double click on one of them to register it and add download URLs. 4: Once you have registered all the components you want to host on your server, build a new vmod. It is important that you build the vmod after you run my tool. Once this vmod is built, you are free to change or add URLs within my tool without rebuilding the vmod again. That is it. No more repackaging components just to change the GetMod URL. The files you host on your webhost are totally unmodified originals. This should avoid a lot of confusion. I made a demonstration video on how to use the tool. I also go over MultiCmps and what is involved with hosting a MultiCmp. The video is here: And you can download the tool here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/61utzv46hllrx4o/GetModMgr.exe The tool can be copied to any folder you want. In my demo I just ran it from my Downloads folder. It doesn't need installing or anything like that. Change Log 1.0.0.0: First release 1.0.0.1: Fixed bug when launching the tool without having any Working Dirs set. Also fixed bug when deleting the last Working Dir. (Thanks Woodee for the bug report) 1.0.0.2: Added the ability to double click on a log entry to show more information about the IP address. (Via: http://www.ip-tracker.org/) 1.0.0.3: Retargeted for DotNet4.0. It was targeted for for 4.5. Using 4.0 I pickup support for Windows Server 2003 R2 and some others. Thanks Juan from F1Elites for pointing out it didn't run on 2003R2. 1.0.0.4: Changed the "Copy URL" button to say "Test URL". Now when you click the button it copies it to the clipboard but also launches it in your default web browser. People may not like this change. Speak up if you don't. 1.0.0.5: Fixed pathing bug which caused the Export button to not work on XP and Server2003. (AppData\Roaming Vs. Application Data) 1.0.0.6: Added a check box labled "Installed Only". When this is checked (and it is by default) everything works exactly how it has before v1.0.0.6. But if you uncheck this box it will show everything that you have registered with your GetMod account, regardless of what is currently installed in the current Working Dir. This will give people the ability to unregister old components they don't need anymore. To unregister a component, just double click on it and then remove all the URLs. 1.0.0.7: Fixed bug where "Test URL" button didn't work when "Installed Only" was unchecked. 1.0.0.8: Fixed bug where the Login dialog, Download URLs dialog and Log Dialog didn't show up on the taskbar. 1.0.0.9: Fixed bug that broke the "Export" button on Vista+ (Thanks Babs for this report). Also added the ability to hold down the Ctrl button while clicking the "Test URL" button which cause it to copy the URL to the clipboard without actually opening it in the webbrowser. 1.0.0.10: Fixed bug where the tool gave an error if and invalid Working Dir was selected. Also fixed a bug which caused an error if it encounters a corrupt MFT file (Thanks Babs). 1.0.0.11: Added some hidden vmod creation functionality that isn't ready for public use yet. 1.0.0.12: More work on vmod creation. Almost ready for the public. Also fixed a bug where the last used DataPath wasn't remembered. 1.0.0.13: Added support for new registry stucture used by the ModMgr on builds greater than 860. You must run GetModMgr from the <Core>\Bin32 folder for this to work. I also did a bunch of work on vmod creation. I need to document it a little before making it public. 1.0.0.14: More improvments to automatic vmod creation. Click HERE for more info. 1.0.0.15: Added a "Mods" button which will list all the vmods you have installed and offers a quick way to uninstall several mods all at once. 1.0.0.16: Fixed bug where tmp files were not getting cleaned up all the time. 1.0.0.17: Remove the requierment to inslude a sound component when building a vmod. 1.0.0.18: Fixed bug where special caracters wouldn't work in usernames and passwords. 1.0.0.19: Fixed bug which impacted user names which contained spaces in them. rF2 doesn't like spaces in the GetMod URLs. So usernames like this "Noel Hibbard" are now properly escaped like this "Noel%20Hibbard". 1.0.0.20: Fixed bug were the tool would crash if you mistype your user/password. 1.0.0.21: Added "Unregister" button. Simply highlight a component or several components and then click this button to unregister all download links. 1.0.0.22: Fixed a bug where the tool wasn't correctly detecting rF2 build numbers higher than 999 which would cause it to not be able to find the datapaths that are listed in ModMgr. Again, it's important that you run the tool from the Bin32 folder or else the build detection will not work. 1.0.0.23: Fixed ancoring on the "Unregister" button. Now when the list of components refresh it will restore your selection and scrolls back down the list to where you were before it refreshed. Known working file sharing services: Dropbox (20GB/Month for free acounts and 200GB/Month for paid accounts) Mediafire Pro (Build 660 and newer only and only on pro accounts) Click HERE for more info. Or if you have your own webhost that supports direct links over HTTP or HTTPS. If people are interested in hosting their own webserver. There is a super simple free webserver for windows called Mongoose. It is a single 140kb EXE that you just drop in a folder and then double click on. By default the it hosts whatever is in the folder that you dropped the exe in. So setting up the server could be as simple as just dropping the EXE into your Packages folder and double clicking on it. By default Mongoose uses port 8080. Keep in mind that it doesn't do any throttling so you will need to configure QoS on your router to limit the webserver otherwise it will eat all your bandwidth and cause drivers on your server to start warping all over the track. Mongoose can be found here: https://code.google.com/p/mongoose/ Click here to donate
That is very slick Noel, well done on the tool and the tutorial I'm guessing I can remove the other stuff from the wiki and just use this one from now? One thing I might have missed, checking if a component already has a download url build in by the creator and if that url is still working. How would one check on that without having to actually download it via the tool? Btw its kinda tugged away in the modding forum where not everyone might be visiting all the time, this needs a place in the main or tech forum as well imo.
To verify an existing link you just open the ModMgr and select the cmp. Then copy the existing URL to the clipboard and then paste it in your browser but don't hit go yet. Now add "?sig=" to the end (without the double quotes), but still don't hit go, now switch back to the ModMgr and copy the component's sig to the clipboard and then go back to your browser and add the sig to the end if the URL. Now you can click go. So the format is like this: <URLfromCmp>?sig=<sigFromCmp>
Oh right. An even easier way is to select the file in your tool and hit Copy Url and then its the entire link already, copy in browser and checksum. Already tried something like that before but I must have messed up.
It won't let me change my working path to my data directory (which is in my documents) Using Vista 32.
Yup, already tried. Ever since trying to get the paths to work (for the link to the packager) I pressed the X to clear the paths now I get this error on startup
This tool shouldn't need admin writes unless your DataPath is in a location that requires admin rights to to write to it. The tool gets the list of Working Dirs from the same registry key that the ModMgr writes to. So normally you would just run my tool and it would automatically go directly to the same location that the ModMgr does. It's possible that deleting all of the paths would cause my tool to crash when launching it the next time. I will have to look at my code when I get back to a computer. I will fix that bug and release a new version. But I am not sure what your original problem was. What do you mean by, it wouldn't let you select your working dir? I will do a bug fix for the error you reported and then we can go from there. Thanks for the bug report!
The folder was originally "program files etc..." and pressing package said it must point to data path and not core, so I tried going to the data path which was in my documents but everytime I changed it, the path would not update in the box and the package button still reported path was wrong.
Hmm. I am guessing your datapath was already on the list and all you needed to do was select it from the drop down? When you browse for a new path it only adds it to the list if it isn't already on the list. I can't recall if I then select the path automatically or only if it is a new one. I will check that out too. I need to select the path even if it was already on your list to avoid confusion. I should be able to look at this in about 1.5 hours.
Okay Woodee, I fixed that bug for you. Download the tool again (same link) and see how it goes this time.
Thanks for the Tool, Noel. I tried your service, but for me it is not working. I got again the error msg: Nothing installed. Check your url validity. I checked the url (rfcmp+sig) and no problems. But download via rf2 is not working.
Did you rebuild your vmod after running my tool? This is critical. Also, I do see one hit on my server for your component and it cam from the game. So to me it looks like you should be working. In my tool, hit the Log button and it will show you all the hits on your account. Right now you should see two entries. One from a web browser and one from the game. I can tell if the requests come from the game because of the user agent string.
Can someone try joining the "WRRacing.net Club" server I set up WITHOUT having Thruxton installed, I want to check if the URL I used in the track worked.
Nope... no link in the component at all. Did you build the vmod after running my tool? The URL will only be included in the vmod if you build it after running my tool. Also, if you did build the vmod after running my tool, did you remember to copy this new vmod to your server and uninstall the old one and install this new one?
I just tried joining your server and the vmod downloaded and it actually does download the rfcmp, but the rfcmp it downloaded is only 1kb and when you open it in a text editor you will see this: Code: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>Raceserver Project Race</title> <meta name="keywords" content="" /> <meta name="description" content="" /> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> </head> <frameset rows="100%"> <frame src="http://www.minden054.server4you.de/Packages/nbg_gp.rfcmp" title="Raceserver Project Race" frameborder="0" noresize="noresize"/> <noframes> <body> <h1>Raceserver Project Race</h1> <p><a href="http://www.minden054.server4you.de/Packages/nbg_gp.rfcmp">http://raceserver.project-race.de/</a></p> </body> </noframes> </frameset> </html> What is happening is the URL you put in the registration isn't a truely direct URL. It gets redirected to: http://www.minden054.server4you.de/Packages/nbg_gp.rfcmp Update your URL with http://www.minden054.server4you.de/Packages/nbg_gp.rfcmp and GetMod should start working. rFactor only supports standard 302 redirects. It doesn't know how to handle these browser side redirects like your webhost is doing.
Lol...i didn`t thought about the redirect. This was the missing magic at all. Many thanks Neol, to point me to this failure. Works now like a charme!
Good job Juergen-BY, it is working now. BTW, vmods don't need to be recreated every time you add remove or change a URL. They only need to be created after registering a component for the first time. After that you are free to modify the URLs and the changes take effect instantly. No need to restart the server or anything like that. I probably should have gone over that in my video.
