Welcome back to File Universe, returning in its fifth incarnation after over a year of absence. If you visit the forum you may know that it's a long story as to why the site went offline but the important thing is that the full File Universe file library, bigger and better than ever, is now permanently hosted on our new and improved server along with the rest of the Total Annihilation Universe Network. The entire network of 50 Total Annihilation websites as well as the domain names and server are now fully under our control so there should be no more problems as far as the site is concerned.
The Total Annihilation File Library is larger and more comprehensive than ever, weighing in at 29 GB and containing almost 7,000 files in over 500 folders. Combined with the 1 GB library of over 4,000 units at Unit Universe, it is the most up-to-date and complete Total Annihilation file archive ever assembled and contains almost everything ever released for the game.
The most notable improvement over the old File Universe is that the entire 8 GB TAMEC DVD map collection, along with several hundred other stray maps from various sources, have been fixed, minimapped, organized, and re-released as the TA Maps r2010 collection and is available from the Maps (r2010) folder (the nearly 12 GB File Universe map collection is available from the Maps folder). Every single map in the TA Maps r2010 collection has been fixed of technical bugs, cleared of potentially conflicting files, and given high quality minimap previews. All you need to enjoy any map from either map collection at File Universe is the TA Unofficial Patch, or the three map feature packs available from the Map Features folder for those who do not wish to use the patch.
Tips and Tricks
File Universe 5.0 is all-new and has its own set of features and quirks. Here are some hints to help you browse the site more efficiently:
Browsing the File Library
Despite all of the pages shown in the drop down menu, File Universe only has a single File Library that hosts all files on the site and you can only have one session of the file manager active at a time, so it's recommended to browse the website only within a single tab. The various pages in the drop down menu are provided as shortcuts to specific folders, but if you want to browse the entire library it's recommended to just use the main Files page to avoid constantly reloading the file manager. Also, note that you can use the keyboard to browse the File Library.
Downloading Multiple Files
You can select multiple files at once by using the mouse to draw a selection box or by holding the Shift or Ctrl keys while selecting. Once you've made your selection, click the Download button or right-click and select Download to bring up the multi-downloader dialog box, which you may find more convenient than double-clicking files one by one.
Browsing Zip Files
You can browse and download the contents of zip files through the file manager without actually downloading the entire zip file. Simply right-click a zip file and select Explore to view the contents. You can then download individual files from within the zip archive by clicking the Download button or right-clicking and selecting Download.
Browsing the TA Maps r2010 Collection
The Maps (r2010) folder contains minimap previews for every single map in the collection. While browsing the map collection, you may want to switch to Thumbnails View by clicking the Display→Thumbs button to more easily view the minimaps. You can also double-click any minimap to view the full-size images in gallery format.
Getting Direct Download Links
Unfortunately, there is currently no way to get direct file download links that you can share with others through the File Universe interface. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to add this functionality in the future via a right-click option. In the meantime, you can discover the direct download link to any file in the library with the following method:
"http://files.tauniverse.com/library" + "address shown in file manager" + "filename"
Future Plans
While the bulk of the work is done, there are still some things to do. TA: Kingdoms files still need to be added, but there's no timetable for when that will happen. Only some of the files and folders in the library have descriptions, and while most of the files will never have descriptions (since no one is going to manually type out descriptions for thousands of maps, etc.) there are still some that are going to be added over time (such as for utilities). As mentioned above, a button for generating direct download links may be added in the future. Finally, we need more screenshots for the random header images, preferably from various mods as well as original TA. If you want to help, visit this forum thread for more information.