Formula ratings

To help you to quickly see which formulas you should try first, Ultra Fractal contains a simple formula rating system. This divides all formulas into three categories:

Recommended
These formulas are the most versatile, or easiest to use. Try these first.
Average
All other formulas. They may be very worthwhile, but are perhaps not the first choice when you are new to Ultra Fractal or to a certain formula file.
Not recommended
These formulas may be obsolete or replaced by a newer formula.

Both individual formulas and entire formula files can be rated. In the browser, the formula icon shows the rating, as shown below:

Recommended formulas, such as Standard.ufm, have a little star in their icon, while formulas that are not recommended (Fractint.ufm) are greyed out slightly. All other formulas have their normal icon, such as My Formulas.ufm in the screen shot above.

By default, the browser groups formulas by rating. Click Group By Rating on the View menu to turn this on or off.

Ratings for formulas are updated automatically when you update the public formulas. However, you can also add your own ratings which will not be overridden by the public ratings. Select the items to want to rate in the browser, right-click them to open a pop-up menu, click Rating, and then click the desired rating.

How do formula ratings work?

Formula ratings are stored in two text files: the private ratings file in the main Formulas folder, and the public ratings file in the Formulas\Public folder. Both are called Ratings.txt. The public ratings file is automatically updated when new public formulas are downloaded. The private ratings file contains your own ratings that you have added via the Rating menu item of the pop-up menu in the browser.

In addition, formulas can also store their own rating. This is a way for formula authors to indicate which are recommended formulas in their formula files. (See the rating setting.)

If you have rated a formula yourself (so it is in the private ratings file), Ultra Fractal uses that. Otherwise, it uses the rating that is stored in the formula file. If the formula file doesn't contain a rating, it uses the rating from the public ratings file. This means that formula authors can override the public ratings in their own formula files, and you can in turn override those ratings.

For formula files, this works the same, except that there are no ratings stored in the formula file: there are only the private and public rating files. In this case, Ultra Fractal uses the public ratings unless you have defined your own rating.

Currently, the public ratings are created by the formula database administrator, so this is not a public voting system. If you feel your formulas are rated incorrectly, please contact the rating administrator via ratings@formulas.ultrafractal.com.