Introducing the Resource Manager

[Zachy]

Hello everyone,

I already posted about this in the Active Forum Membership section, so it's time to reveal it here. We have yet another addition to the forum and the latest is called the Resource Manager. It's pretty self-explanatory, it's where all resources will be. The two main purposes that I thought were great for this are guides and textures. So those will definitely be there now (rather than creating a separate thread). A nice addition is being able to upload your files locally here now. So if you had a texture, you can upload it to the resource manager so people can download it directly from the forum. You can also post official updates (assuming it's a texture). So if you changed the lava color and other aspects of your texture, you can post an update that will note exactly what was changed (if you list changes of course), and it will create a new "Updates" tab and post an Update on the discussion thread associated with the resource. Overall, it's really awesome.

In terms of guides, I'm not really sure how that's going to work yet, but we'll certainly find out a way. What I mean by that is before you had to have your guides approved by a guide creator before they were public. Now you can just post a resource and it will go public. So we'll need to find a workaround for that. So, in the mean time, please don't post any guides.

We will be porting everyone's guide and texture thread over to the resource manager later today. Please don't try and do it yourself. It will be a mess. We need to create a new resource, assign it to you, change the post author with the discussion thread associated to said resource, and move old discussion posts to a new one. It's definitely not something you're going to want to do by yourself (nor can you). You are welcome and encouraged to post new textures into the Resource Manager though.

I wish I had more time so I could post screenshots, but I unfortunately have to go soon and wanted to make a brief introduction here. These are the early stages of the Resource Manager and some more fine tuning has to be done, but please feel free to leave any comments, questions, concerns, etc... that you have below.

 

[0xBlackFoxByte]

I still like the idea it's a nice place for textures and such

 

[DarkPro]

Great idea from the idea factory! Can't wait to see this!

 

[Plex]

So what is the point of the Guide Workshop now?

 

[Zachy]

So what is the point of the Guide Workshop now?

Guides and how they're going to be approved by guide creators (if that's possible still) is still being worked out. The resource manager is still very much a work in progress. I've been able to move over a couple people's textures and a guide to the resource manager thus far. I will continue to work on that more tomorrow (no, it's not just a simple click unfortunately).

Also, just a reminder again: please don't try and put guides and textures over to the resource manager yourself. It's hard, and it confuses me on which guides and textures have been moved over and which ones haven't.

 

[Dark Veaz]

Great idea! Looks better organized!

 

[Zachy]

So an update on the resource manager:

After a much longer predicted time, I have finally moved all textures and guides into the resource manager. The process was a lot harder than I thought. Some posts got deleted in the process, so if you see references to posts that don't exist, that's why. I then found out a method to move them over without deleting posts, so I started to use that. Consistency! I also gave everyone author of their respective resource and put in a decent/cheesy tag line in for most of them. You're obviously welcome to go in yourself and edit your resource if I didn't do enough justice for you.

You will also notice that I have made a new section within the Textures section. The Textures section itself used to be used for texture releases along with general Texture help beforehand. However, the textures section now is only to be used for general texture help/questions. So don't make texture threads there or anything else. The new forum section within the Textures section is called "Texture Releases". Obviously, this is for texture releases only. You will be unable to post a thread there (there will be a little floating notice at the bottom that fades in after some time to remind you if you ever forget). Instead, you will need to go to the resource manager and pick an appropriate category for your texture. The discussion thread will be created automatically in that section, and the appropriate thread prefix will be appended to your thread automatically. So I think that's pretty self-explanatory.

Now with guides. The way that the resource manager works essentially allows us to not have guide creators that approve guides anymore. So that whole concept has been dropped. I'd like to thank @Plex, @Realm, @Wolfy, and @Immy for their help while the concept was still alive. Now, all the staff will be the people approving guides. So if you have any inquiries about those, just ask a staff member now. Also, I know that a lot of people liked to create a thread as a draft and then edit it later. Please no longer do this. It will sit in the moderation queue and just be annoying. So if that happens, we will just have to delete it. Type up your draft somewhere else and then post it once you think it's ready. We would greatly appreciate it. Since there is no longer a thread to communicate with you, if a staff member has some type of problem with your guide, they will start a conversation with you and communicate that way. Similar to textures, we disallow posting directly in the Guides section (you will get a notice telling you to post in the resource manager there as well). Instead, you will need to go to the resource manager and post your guide there. All guides will be pending moderation before approval by a moderator (just like how guide creators had to approve your guide before it went public).

I hope you guys (more or less) like these changes and please let me know if anything is unclear!

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that I added the prefixes "Beta" and "Unmaintained", which you are obviously free to use with your resources. The "Beta" prefix is mainly for people who think that their guide is a "work-in-progress", or maybe the first release of a texture. You may use this prefix to indicate that. The "Unmaintained" prefix is pretty self-explanatory. This means that you're not really going to be updating your guide or texture anymore, so people shouldn't really expect updates or their questions to be answered there unfortunately. It's almost like abandoning it. We (the staff) rather you tell us that you don't want to maintain a resource anymore so we can possibly find someone who will maintain it. That's the preferred option, but the "Unmaintained" prefix is still there as a second option.