Accessing the Galactopedia outside the game

[JamesM]

The Galactopedia does not work in the game for me and I am still trying to learn the game, is there a way to access the Galactopedia outside the game and if so where would I find the file(s)?

[Wade1000]

Have you discovered why it's not working?   I stated before that it might be good to have the Galactopedia as a free downloadable item for potential customers.

[JamesM]

No I have not, it does not help if I make IE8 the default browser.  I wonder if the program is getting confused because windows 7 64 bit installs a 32 and 64 bit versions of IE8.

[PDiFolco]

Bleh, it shouldn't be an IE8 issue, it's not my default browser, I never use it on my 64b W7 system and Galactopedia runs just fine. To me the Galactopedia was totally ingame stuff, not anything external, so report any issue with it on the tech forum.

[Malevolence]

The files are located in the ..\Matrix\Distant Worlds\Help directory.

They are well marked in terms of file names. The extension is .mht which is short for MIME HTML (or MHTML). It basically stores the entire HTML page with media files into a single file.

You can open them directly with Internet Explorer. Firefox tends to choke on them.

[JamesM]

ORIGINAL: Malevolence

The files are located in the ..\Matrix\Distant Worlds\Help directory.

They are well marked in terms of file names. The extension is .mht which is short for MIME HTML (or MHTML). It basically stores the entire HTML page with media files into a single file.

You can open them directly with Internet Explorer. Firefox tends to choke on them.

Thank for your advice, however I can not get IE 8 to read it (32 and 64 bit versions). I can get Firefox to read it as long as I install an addon, but I keep getting open dialog boxes coming up that automatically open Firefox.

Also after reinstalling the original version and the 1.02 version which I re downloaded does not help.

[Gertjan]

I have the same problem. I guess I have to live with it..

[Erik Rutins]

We haven't figured out what's causing this yet, it's really pretty bizarre. I'll move this to tech support just to remind us to keep investigating.

[PDiFolco]

The .mht files show up nicely with IE8 for me, they even appear in the preview panel (w7). However the tree and links don't appear so you have to look at pages separately.

[Fishman]

I have this particular issue on two computers, but it's not DW-related, it's an IE bug: IE can choke on all MHT files, and since DW is relying on Explorer to render these files, the Galactopedia chokes in-game as well. It's not a DW-specific issue and Google is unenlightening as to what causes it or how to fix it reliably, though. If your computer has this malfunction, it probably chokes on all MHT files, in or out of game, DW-related or non.

[BigWolfChris]

If it is affecting DW (I personally don't have any issues), then it might be worth using a different format than mht

[FerretStyle]

MHT is not officially supported by IE, and many people (including myself) can't get them to run at all with it. A fresh install of IE8 won't run these on my WinXP despite them working fine on my roommates IE8. We're both good with computers and neither of us could figure it out, and the internet was not helpful in providing a solution either.

Browsing these files externally with Firefox was the only way I could read them, though others have gotten it to work with Opera and other browsers (all out of game, they only seem to work in-game with IE).

[taltamir]

original poster. Can you please find those files and tell us what their hash is? http://www.slavasoft.com/hashcalc/index.htm This software calculates a ton of different hash formats, so use any one of them at your discretion.

My guess is that your files got corrupted somehow.

[JamesM]

Firstly it seems that the problem is related to the way some installs of IE 8 are not able to read web archive files.

I also got the same error message in firefox, however, a bit work searching in Firefox addons reveled a work around for my access issues with the Galactopedia:

1. In Firefox install the following addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/212 2. In the ....\Matrix Games\Distant Worlds\Help directory right click on any of the mht files and select "open with" and assign the Firefox as the default program. 3. Open Distant Worlds and when you select the Galactopedia you should see the following screen:



4. Select "Open" and both the Galactopedia and Firefox will open and you should see the desired entry in Firefox (you can unclick the always ask before opening this type of file to stop this dialog box appearing all the time) 5. Close the Galactopedia screen when finished, however, just minimize Firefox for faster loading times.

Hope this helps, I know it is a bit clumsy but it works for me.

A note of caution if you want to go back to IE being the default program you first need to uninstall the addon and mess around with having IE 8 installed on you system.

cheers

Jim

[FerretStyle]

james, I was using that method originally but the files didn't open the correct link most of the time.

When you click on the different race entries does it bring you to the correct page?

[elliotg]

Thanks very much for all the feedback and investigation on this topic. We never encountered these problems during testing, but out in the wild you see things you've never seen before [:)]

Looking at all the system-specific issues that can crop up, we may end up having to switch to another format for the help files.

[Gertjan]

Elliot. That would be very helpful!