The Resurrection

And so it begins. Today I took my first look at the files. I must say I was impressed with what I saw. Full, high quality images of all of the screens- with layers. This will make my life much easier and also allow me to make some changes (a screen telling people to take their ticket to the Cast Member at the counter wont do much good- we'll see if it stays or not).

In fact, this is going to be easier than I thought. Which is not to say it will be a piece of cake, just that it's not as complicated as I had imagined. You see, the problem (the reason no one else has recreated the system) have to do not with pretty images like the one above, but with ASP files like this:



Now it is certainly understandable if that looks like complete gibberish to some of you. It does in fact make sense to me, however. What this is is the software that runs the system. It tells everything what to do, when to play, etc.

I thought that I would have to wade through all of the code, trying to figure out exactly what it was doing, and then rewrite it to suit my own needs. This however is not the case. The Disneyland forever system had to do many things: keep track of sales, handle databases of track listings, interface with the CD burning system, etc. My version does not have to do any of those things.

So what I can do instead is, using the graphics and videos, build a new system which will simply preview tracks, create your "CD" like the old one did, and allow you to play the music. It will look and function the same as the old system but behind-the-scenes it will be completely different.



That still wont be easy however. All new pages will have to be created using the old graphics- and the graphics will have to be edited slightly (for example, replacing the world "touch" with the word "click" in instructions). There also has to be a way to keep track of all of the music in each land so that you can browse through it, a way to keep track of what songs (and in what order) you've selected, a way to search through the database of tracks...

Yep. It's going to be a lot of work. But with any luck, maybe it will be up and running in time for the holidays. I'm not making any promises. However if you keep reading this blog I'll give you a chance to test out BETA versions of pages and give you previews. It should be fun.

Stay tuned!