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"I
wont eat my liver just yet..." by Costa Elia
When I was told that I had to write a report on RCT reader, I
suddenly got the urge to rip out my liver and eat it.
"It takes the .TD4 files the tracks are saved as
and then changes them to HTML for you and blah blah
blah...."
Not only did the information given to me sound as interesting
as watching paint dry, but I didn't understand the language the
info was in....".TD4...HTML" what the hell is that?
So anyhow, I got to it. Finding and downloading it was easy
enough and unzipping it was, well, as easy as it'll ever be. On
opening the program you get this little window that looks like
this....
You see that little box below the drop-down menu? well what
you're supposed to do is highlight the folder in which the track
files are kept, but it doesn't actually tell you that so if
you're not psychic (i.e. everyone) then you might make the same
mistake I did and keep putting in the folder where you want the
web page (don't laugh at me its serious).
Once you've done that and clicked the nifty 'next step'
button you'll get another window that asks you to tick the
factors you want included about each roller-coaster on the web
page.....or in diagram form...
The ones I've ticked above are ones you will probably be
using but you never know when the 'average speed' might come in
handy (sarcasm intended). Anyway, once you've done that your
faced with the exciting prospect of choosing between the 'next
step' button if your clever enough to get it right so far or the
'previous step' button for those who just realized they don't
own RCT.
On clicking the next step button you get a new window which
goes a little like this...
This is really the important bit so thinking caps on....here
we go.....the 'separate by ride type' button is useful only if
you have masses and masses of rides. What it does, is that in
the web page this program will eventually make, it'll have
hyperlinks (or 'blue writing' for those who don't speak internet
language) that are the ride types and when you click on those
it'll take you to another web page with only rides of that type
on it.
'Copy tracks to subdirectory' I haven't even bothered with,
so those of you who do download the program (i.e. no-one) can
have a pleasant surprise.
The other boxes are pretty self explanatory, but make sure
you have the "track names as hyperlinks" box ticked,
cause this will let people on the internet see your ride stats
and then download it. Reading alone isn't fun at all.
When you've clicked what you want, and pressed 'finish' it'll
make the web page which if I remember correctly will be in the
folder your rides are in. Here is a little piece of what the
finishes article looks like...
There you are! Like the program itself, the
results are plain, boring but informative. For those of you
brave or stupid enough to have read this far I'm glad to tell
you that the program wasn't half as bad as I expected...and I
think my liver is safe for the time being.....
Rating
Summary
A pretty good program that does what it says,
but a little boring to use and the resulting table looks
completely crap if put on a professional looking web page. I'd
recommend it to anyone that does make web pages about RCT but
for anyone else its pretty useless.
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