MapTool-1.3.b89s Rev 5
Use same link as before but go to the Rev 5 section.
Everything is the same as Rev 4 with the following additions/changes:
* Added Rev 4 of CacheCleaner. The default settings are Warning at 1024MB, Cutoff (automatic cleaning) at 2048MB, Cleaning Down To 512MB. Notification mode "Warning". See Thread
http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24102 for details on what this means. The above "How To" file does not provide details on this feature since it is mostly a passive feature but the indicated thread can be used to understand how it works.
* For compatibility with CacheCleaner, Sounds are now cached in the MapTool assetcache directory (as opposed to MapTool resource directory).
* Server side no cache honorary system requests
This is a method for any audio server (with additional coding or special requirements) to make a request to MT indicating that the corresponding audio file should not be cached. This is NOT intended to prevent the USER from violating copyright laws, it is intended to prevent MT from violating copyright laws. It is a completely honorary mechanism since the server has not way to enforce it. My MT sound implementation, however, honors this mechanism.
Basically, in order to indicate that a sound file should not be cached, the file name extension, on the audio server, is changed from ".wav" to ".no-cache.wav". When MT is asked to play a sound file it first check (as it did in Rev 4) for a local copy. If it exists then the local copy is used and caching is not applicable. If the sound file does not exist locally, MT will try to play it from the repository. If the file does not exist, MT will try modifying the file name with the no cache addition. This means that the audio file on the server only needs to be there once, either with or without the ".no-cache" addition, and the MT streaming mechanism will find it and stream it. However, the MT cache functions strictly look for the file without the ".no-cache" addition. Thus if the file on the audio server contains the ".no-cache" addition, the MT cache functions will not be able to locate the corresponding audio file and thus the file will not be cached.
There are two main reasons for using this mechanism:
* Copyright files. If the server includes copyright files which the user has rights to mass play but not distribute, this mechanism can be used to tell MT not to copy the file to the local machine. As was mentioned above, this is not intended to prevent the USER from copying the copyright file...there are many programs that will allow users to get the copyright file if they choose to violate the copyright law. This implementation is just there so that MT does not help in terms of that endeavor.
* Since MT does not currently use any version method for cached sound files, it is not possible for MT to determine if the audio file on the server has changed. In such a case it will always play the local version regardless if the server version has changed. My making the server file non-cached, MT will be forced to re-stream the file from the audio server each time. Consider a very silly example, the audio server has a file called "Weather.wav" which contains the weather report for the day. If on day 1, MT is asked to play this file it will stream and cache the file locally. Now, on day 2, let us say that the weather had changed and thus the audio file on the audio server has been updated. Since MT currently does not do any kind of checking to see if the file has been updated, if MT was asked to play the weather file on Day 2 it would play the locally cached version which would not be correct (since it would be the weather for Day 1). If, however, the weather file on the server was changed to "Weather.no-cache.wav" then MT would stream but not cache the weather report on Day 1 and thus on Day 2 MT would need to re-stream the audio file meaning it would play the, correct, updated audio file.
"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best,
but they only have the right to bare arms, while we have the right to bare breasts"
The Right To Bare Breasts by Bowser & Blue
