Two new save game functions

[borsook]

1. A button 'delete all auto saves' - the save game list soon gets full of them
2. A button 'delete saves older than...' - of course the player would have to specify how old they should be, probably the easiest way would be to count in days.

[Viliam]

A button 'delete saves older than...' - of course the player would have to specify how old they should be, probably the easiest way would be to count in days.

It could be done by the following functionality, which I would like to see:

* possibility to sort saved games by date/time of saving
other sorting: by file name, by campaign name + scenario number + turn, by "autosave" attribute

* possibility to select multiple games
by pressing Shift or Ctrl and clicking on other saves

* possibility to delete multiple selected games
before deleting: "Are you sure you want to delete %i saved games?"

[Infinisearch]

On a related note how about a 'book' like save system, where the book is a savefile and all subsequent saves for that game append to that file. This will give a little structure to the saves, save on file sizes thereby reducing save and load times. You could have two types of books choosen upon creation one with a tree like struture to allow for easy what-if scenarios and a flat type for the more competetive.

[borsook]

On a related note how about a 'book' like save system, where the book is a savefile and all subsequent saves for that game append to that file. This will give a little structure to the saves, save on file sizes thereby reducing save and load times. You could have two types of books choosen upon creation one with a tree like struture to allow for easy what-if scenarios and a flat type for the more competetive.

I have a problem with visualising this. For me it would be sufficient if the game allowed for the creation/deletion and moving saves in and out of folders (like Blizzard games)

[Viliam]

Oh, maybe instead of real folders we could use virtual directories, created automatically like this:

Each time player starts playing a new campaign, a random unique "campaign save id" is generated and saved in all games from playing that campaign. In the list of saved games, all games with the same "campaign save id" are displayed as if they were in a subdirectory. The virtual subdirectory can be expanded by clicking on it.

So if you have like 10 saved games from each campaign, and 30 from current campaign (including automatical saves), this could make some system.

Please note that the saves are not groupped by campaign name, but by whether they belong to the same chain of playing. So when player starts the campaign again (for example with different difficulty), the saves will be put in a new virtual directory.

[borsook]

Oh, maybe instead of real folders we could use virtual directories, created automatically like this:

What's the advantage of virtual over real? Is it because multi-platform compatibility?

[irrevenant]

Oh, maybe instead of real folders we could use virtual directories, created automatically like this:

What's the advantage of virtual over real? Is it because multi-platform compatibility?

I can see a few advantages of storing related savegames in a single file:
(1) It's more space efficient since most filesystems allocate disk space in a wasteful way for small files.
(2) It allows for simpler portability of save games.
(3) It's a true versioning system so can more elegantly represent branching saves.

The book idea sounds like it could be pretty cool as an interface. Your saved games could constitute a library of journals, each one a versioned campaign save. You could scrawl notes against each save in the book etc. etc.

Pure chrome, of course but could be very funky and would add to the atmosphere...

[borsook]

What's the advantage of virtual over real? Is it because multi-platform compatibility?

I can see a few advantages of storing related savegames in a single file:
(1) It's more space efficient since most filesystems allocate disk space in a wasteful way for small files.
(2) It allows for simpler portability of save games.
(3) It's a true versioning system so can more elegantly represent branching saves.

@1 - true but it'll be a few KBs at most wasted, if it's such abig concern then wesnoth should use one big file working as an image of its own file system not 6000+ small files like now.
@2 - if all the saves from a campaign are in a separate folder then I say it's easier to move them to a new computer than like it's now.
@3 - I don't really see what's the point with no folders and versioning

[taro]

For me it would be sufficient if the game allowed for the creation/deletion and moving saves in and out of folders (like Blizzard games)

That would be nice to have. Maybe even saves from the same campaign could automatically go into one directory named after the campaign.
But for the beginning it already would be a great help if a save would either have the name or a shortcut of the camgaign (like HttT) at the beginning of the filename. Or at least the description which is displayed if you click at a save could show the name of the campaign. I very seldom play campaigns and over the time I have completely lost the overview over my played campaigns because I cannot see which save file belongs to which campaign.

[Darth Fool]

For me it would be sufficient if the game allowed for the creation/deletion and moving saves in and out of folders (like Blizzard games)

That would be nice to have. Maybe even saves from the same campaign could automatically go into one directory named after the campaign.
But for the beginning it already would be a great help if a save would either have the name or a shortcut of the camgaign (like HttT) at the beginning of the filename. Or at least the description which is displayed if you click at a save could show the name of the campaign. I very seldom play campaigns and over the time I have completely lost the overview over my played campaigns because I cannot see which save file belongs to which campaign.

This is a good idea in that it would require a minimal code change and has the least chance of breaking anything else, while still providing an easier way to sort saves by campaign.