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HOW TO: Create/Amend Decade Charts

Started by andowhy, April 10, 2009, 12:46:07 PM

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andowhy

The following tutorial will explain how to create your own decade charts from scratch or amend the ones currently In E-Touch.

What Is It?
The Decade charts have been in E-Touch and its forerunner Freebox since inception.  It displays a top ten chart for every month of every year from January 1953 (start of the default UK chart) to December 2009.

How Does It Work?
E-Touch has the capability to display six different charts.  Current versions of E-Touch come with three charts; the UK, ARIA & US Hot 100 charts.  E-Touch looks for the chart folders in the \history\ folder of the E-Touch program directory.  From there it looks for a folder displaying the Year and then a text file within this year folder, using naming conventions 01.txt for January, 02.txt for February etc.
The name of the chart folder will display on the chart label in E-Touch (eg. US Hot 100 Chart).  To add the chart label image a bitmap file is required named Logo.bmp which should be no larger than 250x250, this should be placed on the same folder level as the Year folders. 
There should also be an images folder on the same folder level as the Year folders, which should contain the up, down, stay & new.gif images which will display on the charts signifying the song status.

Example Directory Structure

E-Touch Jukebox\
      \history\
         \US Hot 100 Chart\
               \2009\
                  \01.txt
                  \02.txt
                  \03.txt
               \images\
                  \down.gif
                  \new.gif
               \Logo.bmp

How to Create a Chart
Each text file (01.txt, 02.txt) displays the chart information for one month.  Each text file is made up of ten lines, one line for each song in the chart.  There are three information fields required; the Artist, the Track, and its chart progression (whether it has moved up/down the chart since last month etc).

An example text string;
Artist”,”Track”,Progession.gif

Example with information added
Lady GaGa”,”Just Dance (feat. Colby O’Donis)”,new.gif

Each field is within quotation marks and broken by commas, except for the chart progession field which is not surrounded by quotation marks. The text in bold is required for the information to display correctly. All normal text is able to be edited to display the required information.

Artist - Type the name of the artist/band
Track - Type the name of the song
Progression - Type new, stay, up or down – If the song has moved up the charts since the previous month type up.gif.  It is has moved down, use down.gif, if it has stayed in the same position type stay.gif, or if the track is a new charter then use new.gif

Repeat this process for all ten lines.

Example of a complete months chart

"Lady GaGa","Just Dance (feat. Colby O'Donis)",up.gif
"Beyonce","Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)",down.gif
"Kanye West","Heartless",stay.gif
"T.I.","Live Your Life (feat. Rihanna)",down.gif
"Taylor Swift","Love Story",new.gif
"Katy Perry","Hot N Cold",stay.gif
"Jason Mraz","I'm Yours",new.gif
"Kevin Rudolf","Let It Rock (feat. Lil Wayne)",new.gif
"Britney Spears","Womanizer",down.gif
"All-American Rejects, The","Gives You Hell",new.gif



For further charts and information check out my site at www.members.westnet.com.au/gvdmdshn/