Survival Guide - Dust Settles: SpeedPack

Table of Contents:

Purpose:

The SpeedPack serves two purposes. First, it saves you loading time while playing the game. Second, it saves our bandwidth expenditure. The way it does this is by downloading and installing all of the game images to your computer in a special folder /SGTG. You will only receive images through this download. This will help your load time since your computer won't have to re-download the images every time you click to a new page or refresh a page. Those images will already be available for quick and easy access on your computer. It saves our bandwidth because our server will not have to send out those image files every time you open a new page. Just as with the installation of any program on your computer, it can be easily removed through the installer's uninstall feature. The files and the installer are all contained within a .zip file that can be downloaded from multiple places around the site.

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Location:

You can download the .zip file for the SpeedPack from multiple locations on the Survival Guide part of the site. First, you can find both the Windows and Mac versions for download from the main login screen by clicking the “Downloads” button on the right side. Next, you can download either the Windows or the Mac OSX version from your Profile page. The link to your Profile page is on the bottom bar. (See the information below if you are running Linux..) You can also find a link to each below.

Download the Windows SpeedPack here.

Download the OSX SpeedPack here. (The OSX version was provided by Denmark of Round 7.)

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Setting It Up:

Once you have downloaded the .zip file, you will want to install the images using the installer included in the .zip file. This will take you through the basic installation process that you go through with most software. Once you have installed the files (make sure they are in the /SGTG folder for the images to work properly), you will want to log into the game, if you aren't already, and visit your Profile page. Here you will want to change your settings under "Use the SpeedPack?" at the bottom of the page to the appropriate operating system and click "Update!" If you are ever on a computer without the SpeedPack you can easily either install the SpeedPack there (if allowed) or just change your settings back to see the images until you are back to a computer with the SpeedPack. Once it's set up, the Speed Friendly image will appear beside your name on the Statistics page.

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For FireFox Users:

FireFox has a default security setting that will not allow local images to load in your browser window. You can fix this in one of two ways, an easy, though mildly more intrusive way and a more complex, but less intrusive one. If you are using FireFox 1.5+ you will have to use the more advanced fix, and at current we do not have a known fix that will allow the SpeedPack to work with Firefox 3+.. Those will give instructions that can be modeled on any OS, though non-Windows XP users should see this list for details on where to find the appropriate folder. Also if you are using FireFox 2.0+ and No-Script, you will need to see this fix to get both the SpeedPack and JavaScript to work.

First for the easy way:

This does not seem to work in FireFox 1.5+. See the second method if you have that version.

In FF, type about:config in the address bar. Scroll down to security.checkloaduri and set to false (double-click to turn off). That will let it load local files. Remember to turn it back on or set more advanced settings if you are worried about that type of security.

Now the more complex way (thank you Ascension of Round 9 for this information):

To start, type about:config in the address bar. Scroll down to security.checkloaduri and set to false (double-click to turn off). Once you've finished the rest of the steps you can probably turn this setting back on.

You can create a user.js file in your profiles folder and allowing a bypass of the URL security check specifically for this domain. Now to set this up: in Windows XP go to Documents and Settings, Your User Name, Application Data, Mozilla, FireFox, a random profile name, and this is where the user.js file will go. If you are using a Mac, Linux, or a pre-2000 Windows, see the details below to find the profile folder. The appropriate folders will be in there, not in the root folder where FireFox is installed. There will be no user.js file in there currently unless you have created one before. If you're having trouble finding your Applications Data folder, make sure you have your options set to show you hidden folders. (See here for more details.)

To make one, open a text document and save it as user.js. Make sure it is NOT user.js.txt. You do not need the .txt extension.

You'll need to put the following lines in your user.js:

user_pref("capability.policy.policynames", "localfilelinks");
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites", "http://www.dailywheel.com http://dailywheel.com");
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled", "allAccess");

Remove any extra line breaks so that there are only those three lines. Notice that both www.dailywheel.com and dailywheel.com are present. Depending on how you choose to access the site, this will make a major difference. Having both will cover you so you can access it either way.

Once done, save the file to the appropriate spot. Close the file and your browser. Open it back up, log in and head to your profile. Select your operating system and click "Update!" Now you're good to go.

For those of you using an OS other than Windows XP:

• On Windows XP/2000 - C:\Documents and Settings \ [User Name] \Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[random file name].default
• On Windows 95/98/Me - C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[random file name].default
• On Linux -   -/.mozilla/firefox/[random file name].default
• On Mac OS X -    -/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/[random file name].default

If you're not familiar with this, Mozilla has a helpful little write-up on finding your Profile folder and creating a user.js file, at the following URL:
(http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/edit)

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For those of you with No-Script enabled (thank you Networked Weekend of Round 13 for this information):

In order to get both the SpeedPack and the JavaScript on the site to work (like the countdown timer or some of the AJAX displays), you will need to add something to your prefs.js file. This file can be located in the same folder that you are saving the user.js file to. When you open the file, you should see something like the following.

user_pref("capability.policy.default.javascript.enabled", "noAccess");
user_pref("capability.policy.maonoscript.javascript.enabled", "allAccess");
user_pref("capability.policy.maonoscript.sites", "[listing of sites I allow to run javascript]");

The two addresses for DailyWheel should be listed in the appropriate spot in the third line if you want to see JavaScript when you visit the site. Once you have set up everything with the SpeedPack add the following line to the end of the prefs.js file.

user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.javascript.enabled", "allAccess")

Save the file and make sure the newly saved version is loaded into the proper folder.

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For Linux Users: (Thanks to blubbah of Round 25 for this information)

After I've unpacked the windows-version (with the help of wine) I had the Images in a folder like ~/.wine/fake_windows/SGTG/

Open a console and become root:
sudo su - (i'm an ubuntu-user now)
then create the directories:
mkdir /Library
mkdir /Library/Application Support (don't forget here to escape the Space! Alternatively you could do mkdir "Application Support" to create a Directory with a space in the name)
mkdir /Library/Application Support/SGTG

And then copy the files:
cp -rvp /home/blubbah/.wine/.fake_windows/SGTG/* ./

This will copy the files in the right location.

After this tweak FireFox as described above (if you're using FireFox)
And when you're done with this, update your profile to the MacOS SpeedPack, that's it.

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