Module Question

[Bidmaron]

JPG/Trenloe/or anyone else who knows:

Hypothetical situation: A GM starts a new game, and tells everyone what library modules they must have. One of his players, a GM on other games, has modified content on, say the Basic Rules library module.

Assertion one: The way I understand library modules now work under >=3.0 is that all modules enabled and opened that are not locally loaded on the players' computers are transferred over during the game. Is that correct?

Question one: If the GM changes one of his library modules, what causes that content to get re-transmitted to replace the cached versions at the players' client locations?

Question two: Does the player now have that library module that he can then use on his own games, or is it encrypted in the cache somehow?

Question three: If the player already has the module, but has made changes to the content, will the system somehow detect this and transmit the GM's version?

Recommendation one: Somewhere in FG (I cannot remember where), I noticed you were using CRC checksums or the like to detect differences in a file. Can that technique thus be used so that, when anyone opens a library module on their own (either character maintenance or host mode), FG computes this checksum and stores in back in the module in a root child node or attribute? If this were done, FG could detect different versions of the same content and transmit the GM's version to override the players' own local content.

Recommendation two: Could Smiteworks use their update mechanism to support auto-updates to properly registered/sanctioned extensions, rulesets, and modules? Lone Wolf uses that for Hero Lab, and it's a pretty neat feature.

[Griogre]

Hypothetical situation: A GM starts a new game, and tells everyone what library modules they must have. One of his players, a GM on other games, has modified content on, say the Basic Rules library module.

Assertion one: The way I understand library modules now work under >=3.0 is that all modules enabled and opened that are not locally loaded on the players' computers are transferred over during the game. Is that correct?

Correct, presuming the player opens the modules or the GM, force loads them. If the GM just allows the modules and a player don't actually open one of them them, I don't know if the data is transferred. I would presume not, but don't really know.


Question one: If the GM changes one of his library modules, what causes that content to get re-transmitted to replace the cached versions at the players' client locations?

Presumably a CRC check or something similar, since differences seem to be detected either when opened or on connection.


Question two: Does the player now have that library module that he can then use on his own games, or is it encrypted in the cache somehow?

Module data transferred from the GM goes into the player cache, which is encrypted. And because each campaign has its own cache, the player can not use the data transferred from the GM in any other games.


Question three: If the player already has the module, but has made changes to the content, will the system somehow detect this and transmit the GM's version?

Yes, this is how it currently works.

[Bidmaron]

Thanks, Griogre! Very helpful.

[Moon Wizard]

Just to confirm from the dev side, Griogre is correct on all counts.

Cheers,
JPG

[Bidmaron]

JPG, does the CRC just operate off the file contents or does it use the date/time also? In other words, if the same exact changes have been installed on both the GM and players' modules, would the change still be pushed or would it use the locally installed player copy?

[Moon Wizard]

CRC only. Doesn't look at date / time.

JPG

[Bidmaron]

Thanks, JPG.