Copy/paste parameters is a more convenient way to share in social media than uploading/downloading parameter files (which can be problematic in sites that don't support the particular extensions). One alternative is the cloud sharing that Frax does, which is more of a mobile thing.
In the interests of more programs supporting copy/paste, it would help if some standard documentation of the requirements was easily available. I've done some Googling and I'm still not clear on it. What text encoding is required for reliability? Base64 is one obvious solution, but MB3D doesn't go that far and seems to work. Some of us will definitely want to compress first, and zip is obvious, but what's the easiest thing to do after that?
its good that you think about it ...
lets make some things clear:
- parameter sharing would be nice to work cross-platform, for that to work the text-block definition has to be made completely public and standard encoding/compressing algorithms should be used
- it has to be interpreted from YOUR program and nothing else, everything else is bonus
- YOU need to take care for backward compatibility, marking program version and such in the code is reliable
- just because mb3d uses non base64 chars it does not mean it is good, ultrafractal is a far better example of how to do it
if you want to hear my five cents:
- create a readable json form you parameters, at best with enough space to get ready for backward/upward compatibility
- this json then put through an easy compressor, e.g. run-length encoding as simple example or a more convenient one from an open source library
- it is important to get the packing stuff right so if anyone wants to write an impoorter for his own product he has to rely on that!
- then - no question asked - encode it as base64 string block, at best padded to a regular line width block, enclosed with a brace and there you go