New client's "data directory"

[Roja]

i'm using winXP, and when I tried out the new CVS client it placed all the custom data files in the user/applicationdata/etc etc... long windows directory place.

 

I found in the el.ini a place where it says:

 

This option is currently only available on linux, and allows you to

specify a directory other than the current directory to load data from.

For Gentoo users, the ebuild installs in /usr/share/games/eternal-lands.

 

 

Are there plans to make it available for windows too? (I always like to keep that custom data in the install directory, not in window's directories).

[Roja]

btw one other thing about this. When I first tried running the CVS client I got the starting/load screen then it immediately crashed. I had to change the dir. in the .ini to this:

 

C:/Documents_and_Settings/MainUser/Application_Data/elc

[Torg]

i'm using winXP, and when I tried out the new CVS client it placed all the custom data files in the user/applicationdata/etc etc... long windows directory place.

 

I found in the el.ini a place where it says:

 

This option is currently only available on linux, and allows you to

specify a directory other than the current directory to load data from.

For Gentoo users, the ebuild installs in /usr/share/games/eternal-lands.

 

 

Are there plans to make it available for windows too? (I always like to keep that custom data in the install directory, not in window's directories).

Oh boy... ok, there have been 2 changes that you are seeing and they are both now available for Windows (with NEW_FILE_IO). The first, is that now all configuration data is stored in the default user profile locations for each OS. The second, and related to the first is that now the "data directory" is configurable under Windows. These are both new only to the Windows client, they have been used under Linux and Mac for a while now.

 

The one that is listed in el.ini is the "data directory" (the second one). The config dir is what you are shown when logging in and is currently limited to the default system directories for each OS and is not changable (it almost never is for any program on any operating system).

 

The terms can be a little confusing and I think you are getting them mixed up. Just to clarify:

 

The "data directory" is where the client data belongs. In its most basic form, it is the directory that you installed EL into. However, when you run a CVS client, you can run the client from a different directory (where you compiled it) and it will pick up the client data from the "data directory". This allows you to have multiple "data directories" for the current and development clients which can help in testing multiple things simultaneously. For example, I have 2 "data directories". One that is the current client, and I have one for testing NEW_SOUND, with the new sounds and the new actor models.

 

The "config directory" is configuration data, not client data. In theory, you should always keep configuration info under a personalised section so when you log on as a different user, you can have a unique config.

 

btw one other thing about this. When I first tried running the CVS client I got the starting/load screen then it immediately crashed. I had to change the dir. in the .ini to this:

 

C:/Documents_and_Settings/MainUser/Application_Data/elc

Hmmmm, that's odd. If you are talking about the "data_dir" setting, it should be set to the directory you installed the client into. I would have expected "c:\Games\Eternal Lands\" or "c:\Program Files\Eternal Lands\". Where did you install it?

 

As for the crash, it is a known problem. I mentioned this to ttlanhil (who wrote the patch) when testing this code under Windows and it was decided that rather than hack a fix into the client, people would just be notified when updating that this variable needed to be set (or it would be automatically set in the install, which is the correct way to handle this). For those testing the CVS client it was considered they would know enough about the things to know it needed to be set up, and how to do it.

[ttlanhil]

i'm using winXP, and when I tried out the new CVS client it placed all the custom data files in the user/applicationdata/etc etc... long windows directory place.

Yup, it says that when you start the client so you know exactly where to find the files if there's a reason, with NEW_FILE_IO. This makes it the same on any OS, as well as separating the system data (install) from user data (config). While this isn't needed on the older versions of windows, MS is finally trying to imitate some of the security that *nix has had for decades in Vista, so it may become more important to properly segregate data.

Are there plans to make it available for windows too? (I always like to keep that custom data in the install directory, not in window's directories).

If you mean the config dir, then you can adjust that at compile time, but since the config dir locations are in the correct places according to the operating system manufacturer's documentation (all in appropriate subdirectories under the user's home directory), it's not the sort of thing I would want to be available to people who can't compile (not only that, but since you have to make sure your data is available under the new directory, people who don't know exactly what they're doing shouldn't be able to touch any of that).

btw one other thing about this. When I first tried running the CVS client I got the starting/load screen then it immediately crashed. I had to change the dir. in the .ini to this:

C:/Documents_and_Settings/MainUser/Application_Data/elc

That's funky, because that's the configdir, not datadir, and if the data is found there, there are some really big problems. Perhaps Xaphier's recent changes caused an issue? Or someone else working on something besides NEW_FILE_IO? I don't know about now, but it was working properly a few months ago.

As for the crash, it is a known problem. I mentioned this to ttlanhil (who wrote the patch) when testing this code under Windows and it was decided that rather than hack a fix into the client, people would just be notified when updating that this variable needed to be set (or it would be automatically set in the install, which is the correct way to handle this). For those testing the CVS client it was considered they would know enough about the things to know it needed to be set up, and how to do it.

Mmm, if I remember correctly, that's because the datadir is actually set in the el.ini that comes with the client, but not previously used on Win, right? If so, yeah, although detecting missing directories (and then defaulting to the current directory, for datadir) shouldn't be too hard

[Roja]

Yes you are right Torg, I was mixing up the terms "data" with "config"

 

Ok, I like to have ALL my files in just 1 folder..so to do this I'd have to change some settings in the code when compiling I take it? ugh, ok

[ttlanhil]

If you want to have everything under the same folder, then either that or install EL to the configdir (or a subdir). Which is probably simpler.

Another option you could consider is simply putting a shortcut in each folder to go back and forth, so you only need to click in windows explorer/whatever to go to the other directory (I'm assuming that being able to get at all the files quickly is the main thing).

The third alternative to storing in $HOME would be to move el.ini and el.cfg and the rest into the windows registry, which is the sort of nonsense many programs use (and why $HOME isn't more populous on the typical install). But hopefully no-one here thinks that's a sensible idea