World Export & Archive

New Art City supporters can now download their work as a complete directory of HTML, CSS and JavaScript files. It contains all the code necessary to experience your world, and, since it runs on a web browser today, it is likely to continue to run on web browsers in the future too. Learn more about our reasoning on our blog post about archiving.

How to export your world

From your world settings page, click on the export world button in the lower right:

This will start the process of turning your world into a zip archive. You will receive an e-mail with a link to download the zip when this process is complete.

The currently published version of your world is what ends up in the zip. You can make more changes, re-publish, and re-export your world as many times as you need.

Inside the zip

Once you’ve downloaded the zip, unzip it and look inside:

You will find several files and directories. In the artworks directory you will find all of the artworks you uploaded in this world. In fact, what you are looking at are all of the parts (HTML, CSS, JS, fonts, images, etc.) of a static website that can display your world in any web browser.

How to use the archive

In order to make use of your archived world, you need a static web server. Here’s one that’s really easy to use on Mac and Windows: https://simplewebserver.org/. The rest of this document will assume you’re using Simple Web Server, but any web server will work.

Download and install Simple Web Server and open the application. You will see this window:

Click on the orange New Server button in the lower right. You will see this dialog:

Now click on “Choose folder”, and select the directory you unzipped from your world export download. The name of the directory will look something like name-of-your-world-2023-03-01-IiOixK3J.

Now click on the orange Create Server button in the lower right. You will see that your server is running like this:

Now it’s ready! Open your favorite web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080 to see your world!

Things to do with your exported world

You can do anything you want with your exported world: host it on your own website, sell it, put it in a library, on a floppy disk, on the decentralized web, or in a dead drop. Let us know how it goes! Join the community discord if you haven’t already, and share with us how you’re using your exported world.