Using the CSV bulk import tool, I uploaded some books…wrong. So I fixed the errors and tried again. The result is two book listings with identical titles.
Presumably nobody wants to have many books with identical titles. Could the CSV bulk upload tool update, rather than add new books?
We have updated the bulk import tool with an option to update existing products, matched by title (case-insensitive). By default, this will be unchecked, but you can select it for any import.
Thanks for calling this out!
Cheers. Can the file uploads also update to the latest and delete the old copies as well? Right now re-uploading leaves many copies of the same file.
Here’s an example link:
https://gitlab.com/bindrpg/metabind/-/jobs/artifacts/master/raw/Soup.pdf?job=build
The files are updated twice a month, so it’s good to upload a new version (even if the link hasn’t changed), as long as the old can be removed.
Do you mean when importing a file that has the same name as an existing file? Or just when uploading a new file on the Edit product page?
If you update the files available in a pricing tier and add new files, anyone who has already purchased that tier will be able to download the files from it. So if you’re doing this from the Edit product page, you just upload the new file, make sure it’s in the relevant pricing tier(s), and delete the old file. Then your buyers will have access to the new file instead of the old one.
If you’re doing it by a CSV import, then you’ll still need to add the newly imported files to your pricing tiers, and delete the old ones after running the import.
However, it sounds like you want the import to update files that have a matching file name as the one you have in the CSV import.
One of the difficulties there is that we normalise file names on upload to prevent conflicts and malformed file names, so the stored names on our side may be different to what you have in your CSV, even if you use the same file name you used previously.
There’s also some risk involved where someone may not realise they’re overwriting a file when running an import, and their buyers will lose access to the old file without the seller knowing what’s happened.
All that to say - it’s not impossible to do! But it will require some thought to make sure we do it well. Most creators generally aren’t updating the files in their games all that often, but if there’s a need for it, we’re happy to look into solutions.
Yes - same books, same file names.
It’s certainly an odd habit to update so often, so I’ll outline the reasons: seasons. They’re a pain to deal with in a campaign, and adventure modules don’t take them into account, or (worse) you find a nice module but it’s set in Winter, which means you have to plan when to run it (and hope it works with the rest of the campaign).
BIND’s solution: each module changes for the current season automatically. Right now is a warm season, in two weeks the modules will replace warmth with rain, and two weeks later (real-time mid-July) every module will mention snowfall and remove the basilisks while they hibernate.
The markets adjust too - food’s cheap now, but those prices will go through the roof when it’s cold.
Certainly an interesting and well-thought-out setting mechanic!
It sounds like this is just for one game, so it would likely be simpler to just upload the new files on the Edit product page, delete the old ones, and make sure the relevant pricing tier(s) include the new files.
That way, anyone who has purchased that tier will be able to download the new files from their Library page. Their activity feed (and digest email if they have them enabled) will inform them that there are new files to download.
We’ll likely add a feature that notifies buyers when new files have been added to their existing purchases to make that more clear.
Just one game, but changed books include one full chronicle, two adventure modules, and five mini-modules (each with multiple formats available).
We’ll likely add a feature that notifies buyers when new files have been added to their existing purchases to make that more clear.
Hopefully that’s optional. I wouldn’t want to annoy everyone with a notification for automated updates every time the seasons change!
The solution on Itch is just to redirect to the URL where the PDFs are hosted, or silently upload with butler (the Itch upload tool). Maybe there’s a similar option here for free games?
Yeah - if/when we implement this, we’ll make it an optional thing.
We’ll look into other way of updating in a more automated fashion, but for now the best way is to upload the new files, delete the old ones, and update the pricing tiers - all of which is fairly quick to do, even with multiple files.