BOARD18 Author's Guide

Introduction

Starting with release 2.2.0, BOARD18 provides to author and admin level players the ability to upload game boxes directly from the PC running the browser to the BOARD18 database. This automatic process does require that the game box in question be in a correctly formatted .zip file.

If you wish to have access to this facility then contact a site administraator for the BOARD18 site in question and request that you be made an author level player.
Note that I will grant anyone author level access to test1.board18.org for the purpose of testing new game boxes.

A Correctly Formatted .zip File

So what is a correctly formatted .zip file? In answering this question, I will use 1830-REP02 as an example game box. You will of course use your own game box name when you create your game box .zip file.

The .zip file for the 1830-REP02 game box must contain only one directory and this directory must be named board18-1830-REP02. The .zip file itself must be named board18-1830-REP02.zip. Actually the upload process will also accept a .zip file named Board18-1830-REP02.zip.

The board18-1830-REP02 directory must contain four items as follows:

 
    1830-REP02
    1830-REP02.json
    LICENSE.txt
    README.txt

The first item must be a directory containing all the image files for the game box. These image files should be in the .png format. This directory's name must be the game box name [IE: the main directory name minus the board18- prefix.]

The second item must be the .json control file for the game box. this file's name must be the game box name with a .json suffix. Do not use any other suffix. This file should have previously been passed through a JSON validator like JSON lint.

The final two items are, of course text files. They can be downloaded here.
These files are optional for this upload process but they are required for the final game box submission.

The Game Box Upload Process

The Game Box Load Form is shown to the right. This form can be found on the board18BoxLoad.php page. A link to this page called Load Game Box can be found on the Administration page if you are an admin or author level player.

Use this form to browse to and select the game box .zip file that you wish to upload. Then press the Load Gamebox button to start the actual game box load process. This process is web traffic intensive and may take quite a while to complete. Please be patient.

If the game box load is successful, then a green popup notice, like the one shown to the right, will be displayed and an email with a Load Box Report will be sent to you.

This is a sample of such a report:

 
This is a message from the BOARD18 server at xxxxxx.
 
ZIP file was uploaded successfully.
  file name = Board18-1830-REP02.zip
  file type = application/zip
  file size = 3874417
  file temp = /tmp/phpzbqo3V
  
Unzip of uploaded file was successful.
  Gamebox directory board18-1830-REP02
  Directory structure:
    1830-REP02
    1830-REP02.json
    LICENSE.txt
    README.txt
  
Control [.json] file was read successfully.
  box name = 1830
  box version = REP02
  auther = Rich Price
  
Image directory move succeeded.
  
Game box exists - do update.
  game box id = 9
  
Game box successfully updated.

If the game box load failed, then a red popup notice, like the one shown to the right, will be displayed and an email with a Load Box Report will be sent to you.

This is a sample of such a failure report:

 
This is a message from the BOARD18 server at xxxxxx.
 
ZIP file was uploaded successfully.
  file name = Board18-1830-REP02.zip
  file type = application/zip
  file size = 3874415
  file temp = /tmp/phpS4SKM7
  
Unzip of uploaded file was successful.
  Gamebox directory board18-1830-REP02
  Directory structure:
    1830-REP02
    1830-REP02.txt
    LICENSE.txt
    README.txt
  
Unziped file does not have a valid directory structure.
  control file name should be
/tmp/phpS4SKM7extract/board18-1830-REP02/1830-REP02.json
Game box not created.