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<h1class="page-title">About File Areas</h1>
<h2id="about-file-areas">About File Areas</h2>
<h3id="a-different-approach">A Different Approach</h3>
<p>ENiGMA½ has strayed away from the old familiar setup here and instead takes a more modern approach:</p>
<ul>
<li><ahref="https://whatcd.github.io/Gazelle/">Gazelle</a> inspired system for searching & browsing files.</li>
<li>No conferences (just areas!)</li>
<li>File areas are still around but should <em>generally</em> be used less. Instead, files can have one or more tags. Think things like <codeclass="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">dos.retro</code>, <codeclass="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">pc.warez</code>, <codeclass="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">games</code>, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h3id="other-bells-and-whistles">Other bells and whistles</h3>
<ul>
<li>Temporary web (http:// or https://) download links in additional to standard X/Y/Z protocol support. Batch downloads of many files can be downloaded as a single ZIP archive.</li>
<li>Users can rate files & search/filter by ratings.</li>
<li>Users can also create and save their own filters for later use such as “Latest Artscene Releases” or “C64 SIDs”.</li>
<li>A given area can span one to many physical storage locations.</li>
<li>Upload processor can extract and use <codeclass="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">FILE_ID.DIZ</code>/<codeclass="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">DESC.SDI</code>, for standard descriptions as well as <codeclass="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">README.TXT</code>, <codeclass="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">*.NFO</code>, and so on for longer descriptions. The processor also attempts release year estimation by scanning aforementioned description file(s).</li>
<li>Fast indexed <ahref="https://sqlite.org/fts3.html">Full Text Search (FTS)</a> across descriptions and filenames.</li>
<li>Duplicates are checked for by cryptographically secure <ahref="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2">SHA-256</a> hashes.</li>
<li>Support for many archive and file formats. External utilities can easily be added to the configuration to extend for additional formats.</li>
<li>Much, much more!</li>
</ul>
<h3id="modding">Modding</h3>
<p>The default ENiGMA½ approach for file areas may not be for everyone. Remember that you can mod everything your setup! Some inspirational examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>A more traditional set of areas and scrolling file listings.</li>
<li>An S/X style integration of message areas and file areas.</li>
<li>Something completely different! Some tweaks are possible without any code while others may require creating new JavaScript modules to use instead of the defaults.</li>
</ul>
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