totalcmd.net

[petermad]

Also, such a solution would require consent from the owner, and I have not asked him yet.

Yes, the best way would be if he would give up all rights, so it could be moved somewhere else.

[Flint]

No, I didn't mean moving it completely, I don't think he'd agree to that. Not even sure if the full mirror would be appropriate, or people would just start using it instead of the main site, and I don't think he'd like that. Just something similar to Web Archive: enough to retrieve the data when the main site is unavailable, but not suitable for a full replacement.

[hi5]

Perhaps Ghisler Software GmbH should simply put up an official plugin website using more or less the same model, but of course of superior quality - that way totalcmd.net slowly fades away and is no longer relevant.

So just use a new domain where a part of the plugins are vetted by Ghisler as they are now (see https://www.ghisler.com/addons.htm ) and the rest is community driven - each plugin can be marked as such "official" , "approved", "community contribution" - this seems to work well for many text editors, well known example is https://packagecontrol.io/ (Sublime Text) which also looks very user friendly - simply offering a better user experience over the simple list of ghisler.com and totalcmd.net - no doubt knowledgeable volunteers can be found to maintain entries/provide access to plugin developers similar to moderators here of the forum can be found.

Edit: the main part is that it is hosted/controlled by Ghisler not a third party that "we" can't rely on.

[deus-ex]

2hi5

You suggested that already a couple of months ago, and I answered with a link to an earlier response from Christian where he answered to my suggestion and why this is unlikely to happen. Perhaps you have a bad memory and forgot about this already?

[speller2]

Just mark plugins as officially approved or community ones. That's how all plugin/addon stores work nowadays. Nothing prevents from making hosting on another IP/domain (cloud solutions). Well, from my point of view, that's a matter of willingness.

[hi5]

2deus-ex yes I may have forgotten that - but ghisler.com is of course not the suitable domain to use and a new website should be community driven. Ideally plugins should even be "discoverable" from with TC itself just like you can find addons in Firefox, or nearly all modern text editors from within the program (they then often redirect to a website of course for further instructions).

[deus-ex]

2hi5

Naturally, I support your idea. I wonder if someone steps up to provide the web service required to host the plugins. It must be a solution that is certain to last for a very long time. Perhaps something like a GitHub repository?

Your idea to add a dialog or command into TC to access a web service to acquire additional plugins is perhaps something worth pursuing. Certainly, many users not that handy in computer maintenance would welcome such functionality to ease the process.

[Flint]

I've set up a basic backup for totalcmd.net/wincmd.ru, for now it can be accessed at http://62.173.139.16:8000/tcbak/

Please, keep in mind:

• This is a very cheap slow VPS; it may struggle under load (and sometimes even without load).
• Syncronization is performed once a day, so the changes from the main site are not reflected immediately.
• Functionality is nowhere near the original site, and is not intended to be. It's just an emergency-situation solution, to let people find and download specific plugins when the main site is offline; not to duplicate all its abilities.
• Users' personal web sites hosted on subdomains (like utceditors.totalcmd.net) are not supported. However, downloading plugins which use direct links from such subdomains will still work (like http://user.totalcmd.net/files/some_file.rar). You can see the original link as tooltip if you hover the "Download" link.
• PHP scripting is not implemented, and therefore non-direct download links (like http://user.totalcmd.net/download.php?id=101; e.g. in Ultra TC Editors) will not work.
• I'm not sure, how long I'll have to run this service; it depends on the future stability of the main site. If it happens to be usefull after all, I may assign some domain name to it to avoid using direct IP, move it from port 8000 to default 80, maybe even buy a better VPS if the current one doesn't cope, etc. What I'm saying is, if you share the link somewhere, please, always add a note that the link may change in the future. If this happens, I'll post an update in this topic.

[petermad]

2Flint

I've set up a basic backup for totalcmd.net/wincmd.ru

Nice initiative - thanks

[ghisler(Author)]

Nice idea! I have created a subdomain ru.wincmd.com pointing your server:
http://ru.wincmd.com:8000
Could you try to enable let's encrypt on it? Then people could use https.

[Flint]

2ghisler(Author)
Thank you for the domain!
I've reconfigured the server to use the port 80/443 instead of 8000, and installed Let's Encrypt certificate, so now it should work as:
http://ru.wincmd.com/tcbak/
https://ru.wincmd.com/tcbak/
(Accessing the root URL, like http://ru.wincmd.com/ , will redirect to /tcbak; I decided to keep the root reserved for possible future use, if I might need it.)
The old URL with the port 8000 is still accessibe, but via HTTP only. I think I'll close the port later and keep only the standard 80/443.

[norfie²]

It works like a charm. Many thnaks.

[ghisler(Author)]

2Flint
Works great, thank you!