Hex for WCMLOS

[alanch]

Yes Alan, but what about those who dion't have RW Tools or who are reluctant to open .ap archives?
You're also missing the original question of how to identify which folder said file lives in initially.

True, but still useful tools in our armoury for finding out what is what - I just add each new route and scenario to an Excel file as I install it. But then I keep an Access database of all my rolling stock as well - sad?

[chrisonline]

Maybe sad, but I'm also guilty as charged - I have a full Excel multi-tab sheet of all routes, locos, main asset folder and sub-folders, and so on.

On the subject of identifying the route, I don't see the difficulty. It takes 10 seconds to right-click on the RouteProperties.xml file, open in Notepad (or equivalent), and there almost at the top is the Route Name. It only needs to be done once, then create the second "dummy" folder with the route name added.

I fail to see why a simple answer like that doesn't knock the whole subject on the head!

Chris

[gptech]

Sad?....and here's me thinking I'm normal

On the subject of identifying the route, I don't see the difficulty. It takes 10 seconds to right-click on the RouteProperties.xml file

The difficulty is faced by those who don't know how to find or extract the Routeproperties.xml file Chris, made more complicated than it should be if the .ap is just named something like "MainContent" rather than having some indication of which main content it includes. Knowing which file to open does imply that you know which directory the route lives in, which is the problem being faced here.
Not everybody is as methodical as 'us' and notes changes to their systems when adding new routes etc; many are unfamiliar with the most basic of file and folder management tasks so advice along the lines of "navigate to your Contents\Routes directory and check the .xml files you'll find in the various folders" could be complete gibberish.

[smarty2]

many are unfamiliar with the most basic of file and folder management tasks so advice along the lines

Have we met? You know me so well!!

[peterfhayes]

As Gary says there is not an easy answer to this.
Before I used the xml extracting process to allow namemyroute.exe/RW_Tools to display the route names with their unique alphanumeric code, I used an app called "search everything" (http://www.voidtools.com/downloads/) and in that I searched for *.ap, I then sorted on content and assets, and now this is the tricky bit "search everything" can't see the .ap file but it can "see" any scenarios associated with that route and will name the route in plain English. For example you may get say 4 entries for say route
00000041-0000-0000-000000002014 - but search everything will not identify the maincontent.ap but it will identify the route using the 00000041-0000-0000-000000002014 code associated with any scenarios attached to that route. This is identified from the scenarios as the West Somerset Railway route. It doesn't work for any route with an .ap file that has no scenarios associated with it.

As I said it is complicated and the extract xml method is easier but with this little app you can at least see most of the route titles and their associated alphanumeric code and it is just like using Windows explorer.
This is for info only, and is in reality an attempt to highlight the complexity of displaying route names in English wrt this new .ap file structure.
PeterH

[gptech]

There are probably hundreds of methods to find a routes name, but I doubt there's a 'one click' answer for those routes with the alpha-numeric folder and a vaguely named .ap archive, so we have to look at using a few tools to get what we want.
Firstly, NameMyRoute doesn't see inside .ap files, but it does show which folders it can't see in to thus narrowing the search.
Windows Explorer lets us see what's inside our Route folders, so this is the next tool to look at.
Most of us will have route folders in Content\Routes that only contain a Scenarios folder (recent example being the Regional Railways class 101 which adds scenarios for Liverpool-Manchester regardless of whether the route is installed or not) so any folders of this ilk can then be taken out of the equation.
Some folders may have a sensible name for the .ap, that makes life easier.
When you run across a folder with an unhelpfully named .ap archive then things get more techie. RW Tools will extract the RouteProperties file, but I prefer to use WinRAR. With this I can browse the .aps contents, double clicking on RouteProperties.xml opens it in Internet Explorer and as Chris has posted it's easy then to see which route it belongs to.
Downloading a scenario for a route you wish to identify will give you the correct GUID for the route; long winded way of course and you still have to examine the .rwp to see where files will go or use Windows Explorer to view the Content\Routes folder with a 'date modified' filter set.
Creating a new free roam scenario from withing the game will do the same, use Windows Explorer as above to see recently added files. Editing an existing scenario would do the same.

Just a handful of "off the top of my head" methods, none perfect or *easy* for those unfamiliar with file management.

Of course the easiest way by far to find a routes name from its GUID is to post in the forum; something along the lines of:

"Hex for WCMLOS

Postby smarty2 on Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:56 pm

As the title says.... its in an ap file but there isn't the description just hex numbers! Be obliged if someone would kindly tell me?"

That only entailed a wait of 9 minutes before the answer was given

[peterfhayes]

Sorry to be pedantic these are NOT HEX numbers they are alphanumeric codes. This is an example of a HEX number 2AF316 which use base 16, usually the symbols 0–9 to represent values zero to nine, and A, B, C, D, E, F (or alternatively a–f) to represent values ten to fifteen.
Lets get the terminology correct so as not to confuse all of us.
pF

[DaveDewhurst]

Sorry to be pedantic these are NOT HEX numbers they are alphanumeric codes. This is an example of a HEX number 2AF316 which use base 16, usually the symbols 0–9 to represent values zero to nine, and A, B, C, D, E, F (or alternatively a–f) to represent values ten to fifteen.
Lets get the terminology correct so as not to confuse all of us.
pF

Although I cant see any occurrence of a character higher than "f" in any of the routes I have installed which you'd think there'd be at least one if we're classing alphanumeric as 0-9 and a-z
I've always looked at them as 5 randomly generated hexadecimal numbers separated by "-"
They do convert back into decimal whole numbers

ce4052d1 = 3460322001
669a = 26266
4529 = 17705
b16b = 45419
1972fc32913a = 27981648138554

Dave

[gptech]

Sorry to be pedantic these are NOT HEX numbers they are alphanumeric codes

I've always looked at them as 5 randomly generated hexadecimal numbers

To a fair number of UKTS members they might as well be hieroglyphics......

I've just done a quick search using "search for *g* " and I have no route, or scenario, folders containing a 'g' ---- if I could keep my eyes open I'd work through the rest of the alphabet but it's late.

[mikesimpson]

Actually these are known as GUID or globally unique identifiers - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globally_unique_identifier for a full explanation.

RW_Tools has an option in the Route Building Tools menu to generate full sets of UUID pairs plus their associated GUID if you need them (each scenario must have unique GUIDs or it will not work).

To make things easier for users, I will add a button to the 'Find all .ap files' option in RW_Tools to extract RouteProperties.xml from all MainContent.ap files, thus allowing both RW_Tools and NameMyRoute to display them all.

Mike

[DaveDewhurst]

I've always looked at them as 5 randomly generated hexadecimal numbers separated by "-"

commonly displayed as 32 hexadecimal digits with groups separated by hyphens

Thank Wiki I couldn't have put it better myself

Dave

[smarty2]

Sooo, was I correct in my unknowledgable description of the number as a hex number then? I'm grateful for the help even though 99% of it went over my head!

[davejc64]

All begs the question why didn't RSC just use the route name instead of the string of undecipherable letters/numbers?

[alanch]

All begs the question why didn't RSC just use the route name instead of the string of undecipherable letters/numbers?

Probably because some routes would be created more than once by different authors, and then the latest version would overwrite the earlier one because the folder names would be identical.

[gptech]

.....and an alpha-numerical identifier is the same, no matter what language the user speaks.