New Orbiter File Structure Proposal

[mjessick]

A (truly) idle thought: It seems kind of wasteful that multiple installations of a particular version of Orbiter keep their own copies of the real Orbiter core stuff. Patches have to be made in each copy, etc.

Perhaps it could be useful to separate it off somehow.

I am not really suggesting this seriously as it would obviously increase complexity and probably doesn't add that much of a benefit. (And also, perhaps increasing complexity for Martin - who acually changes the core! Although I suppose it might turn out to make it easier instead somehow, depending on workflow.)

Just mentioning it in case someone can suggest how it would add something really important, to the point of making it even worth considering.

 

[Artlav]

One more idea, or actually, an extension of the given:
Provide 2 parameters to Orbiter.exe:
-state <statedir> for locating the user-files and settings directory - \State, and
-data (or -universe) <datadir> for locating the \Universe directory.

That way the whole thing wraps up into a logical system:

Multiple data, multiple states:
You have Orbiter executables installed somewhere on the machine, then you can have your scenarios and configs on an thumbdrive, and have all your add-ons and graphics on a DVD, for example.

One state, multiple data:
Put a different DVD in (or run a different shortcut) and you have it using another location for \Universe with another set of add-ons or a clear environment, while still using the same configs.
Running a scenario on a clean install won't even need copying a scenario file.

One data, multiple states:
You can also have Orbiter data installed on a server - for example in the classroom - every PC having the exe's and \State only, thus saving gigabytes of mirrored disk space.

Why not have a file in the \Universe folder that contains a list of users that use Orbiter and where each keeps their \State directory?

Seems unnecessarily complicated, especially compared to the idea above.