Download entire Library

[szapo]

I checked GDTF-Share a few months ago for the last time and noticed quite some changes to the website, e.g. the possibility to download the entire GDTF library at once. 

Is this function still available?

[Petr Vanek - Robe]

Hello @szapo,

at this point, this function is not available but we are discussing it's future return.

Cheers

Petr

cc: @dmueller

 

 

[szapo]

OK thanks that would be a great (re-)addition.

Additionally, is the database API open to be implemented in own, custom solutions?

[Petr Vanek - Robe]

@szapocan you please elaborate further on your use-case please?

Thank you

Petr

[szapo]

I am working on a non-commercial software for lighting control that is planned to use GDTF as the main source for fixture personalities. Instead of having to download each personality on its own it would be great to have the full set of available files at hand and perform an offline search and patching of the desired fixture.  

[Petr Vanek - Robe]

Thank you. Yes, this request is now already being tracked.

[szapo]

Great, thank you very much! 

[Enviral_Design]

As a software developer intending to implement native support for GDTF as well, would very much like to +1 this ?

[mgeasey@clearallvisualsllc.com]

@szapo @Enviral_Design

As a side note to this function, please keep in mind that downloading the entire library has the potential to cause problems as users can upload their own custom GDTF files that might not be supported by the manufacturer. As you can tell right now, there are a lot of test fixtures, user tests and manufacturer tests that are not correct or fully finished. I would recommend reaching out to manufacturers who are building and uploading to the share site to tell y'all which ones are done and ready. 

[szapo]

So it would be good then to download only files that are made by the manufacturer to avoid having these problems.

[mgeasey@clearallvisualsllc.com]

In my opinion yes, because the manufacturers are responsible for providing the correct information for their devices which should be the baseline for users and software. Now, if users decide to edit or make their own GDTF files which is perfectly fine then the software should of course be able to bring that in.

In my opinion, the software manufacturers looking to use GDTF should not be responsible for errors on the user side if the spec is not followed correctly. This creates an area of accountability and safety for Software's and manufacturers. If the users change or alter something, this now becomes an unverified file that the software developers and manufacturers cannot be responsible for. 

At the end of the day, these files aren't meant only for users, they're for everyone.

[Petr Vanek - Robe]

At this point, i do not think anybody else besides Robe has manufacturer's label, from what i can see.

Nice to see Arri and Ayerton now have these too, great!

Per my stats, the entire library is some ~850MB (with some possible duplicates in my data, i will take care of those in the future).

[Petr Vanek - Robe]

Btw here is the GDTF Share in numbers as of this morning.

gdtf_share_report_May_7_2020.html

[dnadoba]

It seems this possible here: https://gdtf-share.com/apis/downloadFiles.php
However, I have now tried multiple times and after a while it fails. I think I get logged out before it can complete.

Is it possible to increase the login session duration? My internet connect is quite fast and should have at least 500 Mbit/s but that doesn't seem to really get used much. 

[Petr Vanek - Robe]

8 hours ago, dnadoba said:

It seems this possible here: https://gdtf-share.com/apis/downloadFiles.php
However, I have now tried multiple times and after a while it fails. I think I get logged out before it can complete.

Is it possible to increase the login session duration? My internet connect is quite fast and should have at least 500 Mbit/s but that doesn't seem to really get used much. 

Hello @dnadoba,this is normally up to your software code to handle and check if the session is still valid and if not, re-authenticate. I have personally not seen any issues with this. Or are you downloading stuff manually? That is not the intention of the API...

[dnadoba]

oh sorry, I'm not talking about the API directly but about the website/frontend. This is part of the UI here if you click on the save icon at the top right of the page. That seems to suppose to allow bulk downloads. I have selected the "Latest Revision" checkbox and the on "Download .zip".

This "fails" after a while by redirecting me to "gdtf-share.com". I'm assuming this is because my login session expired because I also need to login again afterwards.

There also doesn't seem to be a way to resume the download so I only ever get the first ~1000 or so. 

The link I have posted above is a direct link to the iframe that is shown by the web frontend if you click on the save button. 

FWIW I'm interested to get them all to properly test a GDTF parser. 

[Petr Vanek - Robe]

I see. For such a thing, using the API is the right thing to do.