Spectrum Computing

Integrate ZXDB with other databases. Perhaps SPA2?

Absolutely agree! Great idea!

Juan F. Ramirez wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:33 pm

Integrate ZXDB with other databases. Perhaps SPA2?

Absolutely agree! Great idea!

That's in my roadmap as well indeed

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention], I'll be back in touch with you in due time - I'm simply still working on it!

Absolutely agree! Great idea!

I agree it would be great too. And maybe later with Computeremuzone.com as well

Awesome!

A new ZXDB update is available!

It includes new titles (thanks [mention]R-Tape[/mention]!), the first half of newly indexed magazine interviews with software authors (thanks [mention]Stefan[/mention] and [mention]blueowl0708[/mention]!), and a few other improvements.

Another ZXDB update is available!

This time it contains new magazines and updated magazine references.

One more ZXDB update is available!

It includes a few more playable games for Spectrum +3 using ZXZVM (thanks [mention]Alessandro[/mention]!), additional indexed magazine interviews (thanks @Stefan and @blueowl0708!), lots of corrections and updates.

Thanks all,

Spectrum Computing has been updated to the latest release.

Sorry, I forgot to also credit [mention]pavero[/mention] for new hires inlays!

I just wanted to mention that I'm a bit behind with my part of the update. I won't be able to sort it out until the very start of October. Apologies—I'll get cracking on it then. At least there isn't a large amount of new content to add right now.

A new ZXDB update is available!

It includes lots more bugfixes, updated magazine issues information, and even more hi-res inlays from [mention]pavero[/mention].

One of ZXDB's main goals is to work as a "hub", integrating several Spectrum-related sites. It's a great advantage for these sites, because it increases their popularity. Many SC users end up watching RZX videos on YouTube linked from SC pages, for instance. Users interested in a certain artist or musician frequently visit their ZX-Art link to see what else they have created, and so on. It's also a great advantage for ZXDB itself, because this integration saves the effort to put the entire universe into our database. For instance, we don't need to keep track of all playing tips about games, a direct link to The Tipshop works much better. And most of all, it's a great advantage for all users, because they can simply visit the SC page about a certain title, entity or magazine, to easily find links to almost every related site from there.

However it's not easy to keep integration very up-to-date in case of sites that change frequently. Whenever new content is added to one of these sites, this information can only be added to ZXDB in a future update. Depending on the change, if we are too busy working on other aspects of the archive, it may take a couple months until we have time to make the corresponding changes in ZXDB.

To solve this problem, we are now adopting a new strategy especifically for Daren's RZX Archive and Pavel's Speccy Screenshot Maps. Instead of distributing outdated content from these 2 sites in the standard ZXDB distribution, we are now providing a separate script to import content from each site into ZXDB. The scripts are called "ZXDB_import_rzx.sql" and "ZXDB_import_mapy.sql", they are available here. This way, site owners (and other systems based on ZXDB) can easily update content from these sites into ZXDB themselves, any time they want, without having to wait for a new ZXDB update.

In practice, nothing will change to end-users. We are just increasing flexibility in the process of updating ZXDB, that's all. Also it won't affect the way we work closely with both Daren and Pavel in this integration. In particular, we are continuing our efforts to ensure any missing titles mentioned by either site will get added to ZXDB. As a matter of fact, we have just finished automating the process to identify missing titles, it can be seen at the bottom of this page.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2019 10:56 pm To solve this problem, we are now adopting a new strategy especifically for Daren's RZX Archive and Pavel's Speccy Screenshot Maps. Instead of distributing outdated content from these 2 sites in the standard ZXDB distribution, we are now providing a separate script to import content from each site into ZXDB. The scripts are called "ZXDB_import_rzx.sql" and "ZXDB_import_mapy.sql", they are available here. This way, site owners (and other systems based on ZXDB) can easily update content from these sites into ZXDB themselves, any time they want, without having to wait for a new ZXDB update.

On second thought, I decided to provide both options.

From now on, every ZXDB release will already contain the latest distribution of RZX Archive and Speccy Screenshot Maps. But the import scripts will also remain available, so if their contents change, they can be updated again without waiting for another ZXDB release.

A new ZXDB update is now available!

I'm glad to announce that ZXDB is now integrated with World of SAM. Many thanks to Andrew Collier for approving this integration, and [mention]Stefan[/mention] for adding all information about Sam Coupé titles into ZXDB!

On a more technical side, columns "labels.spot_name" and "labels.spot_comment" were merged into a single column "labels.comments". In practice, this column will indicate when SPOT/SPEX contains a different spelling for certain person or company names (that will need to be validated later).

Another ZXDB update is now available!

This update adds FRED magazine (for the SAM Coupé) to the archive.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2019 2:18 pm I'm glad to announce that ZXDB is now integrated with World of SAM. Many thanks to Andrew Collier for approving this integration, and @Stefan for adding all information about Sam Coupé titles into ZXDB!

I've noticed there are SAM games (listed on World of Sam) missing from the archive. Are these something that someone is working on gradually adding or do you consider the import to be complete?

8BitAG wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2019 6:41 am

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2019 2:18 pm I'm glad to announce that ZXDB is now integrated with World of SAM. Many thanks to Andrew Collier for approving this integration, and @Stefan for adding all information about Sam Coupé titles into ZXDB!

I've noticed there are SAM games (listed on World of Sam) missing from the archive. Are these something that someone is working on gradually adding or do you consider the import to be complete?

I may have missed a few that I had no connection with. Feel free to add them.

I was also thinking about the disk magazines (mainly FRED) - theoretically individual entries per disk could be added similar to what has been done for Outlet.

On another note - how can we get loading / running screens into the database?

Yet another ZXDB update is available!

This version contains new titles (thanks [mention]R-Tape[/mention]!).

Stefan wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:07 am

8BitAG wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2019 6:41 am I've noticed there are SAM games (listed on World of Sam) missing from the archive. Are these something that someone is working on gradually adding or do you consider the import to be complete?

I may have missed a few that I had no connection with. Feel free to add them.

If either of you is willing to add any of the remaining titles, please let me know. Thank you!!!

There are basically 2 ways to contribute with information about titles. The simplest method is filling this spreadsheet. The other method is running ZX-Ed locally, that will give you a lot more flexibility.

Stefan wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:07 am I was also thinking about the disk magazines (mainly FRED) - theoretically individual entries per disk could be added similar to what has been done for Outlet.

Awesome!

Stefan wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2019 10:07 am On another note - how can we get loading / running screens into the database?

Please read instructions here. However I don't know if there's a standard format for SAM Coupé screens, I'm contacting [mention]moroz1999[/mention] now to ask him about it.

Thanks for contacting! I'll make a separate topic about Sam Coupe formats.

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2019 3:42 pm If either of you is willing to add any of the remaining titles, please let me know. Thank you!!!

Well, there are quite a lot of missing SAM titles that fall under my specialism of text adventures, most of which are listed on World of Sam, so I'll look into adding them to the database.

There's also our Sam Adventure Club magazine disks, as well as all the various compilations that we collaborated on with several homebrew publishers... These are things like compilations of Zenobi's Spectrum titles that have various tweaks (such as offering additional choices of fonts & user-defined colour schemes) and Sam-specific features such as disk saves... I'm not quite sure how these will slot into the database...

A new ZXDB update is available!

This version mostly contains bugfixes provided by [mention]druellan[/mention].

Thanks [mention]Einar Saukas[/mention]

If everything goes to plan, I will update the site this evening.

A new ZXDB update is available!

It includes new titles (thanks [mention]R-Tape[/mention]!), new hires inlays (thanks [mention]pavero[/mention]!), and new fixes (thanks [mention]druellan[/mention]!).

Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 1:36 pm A new ZXDB update is available!

Fast work Einar. Hope it wasn't too painful

And clickety-click, that marks the 66th ZXDB update at SC (plus an as-yet uncounted number from BSCE*)

*before Spectrum Computing Era