Re: [AD] 5.0.0 final release plan

[Matthew Leverton <meffer@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 4:13 AM, Thomas Fjellstrom
<tfjellstrom@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Except IMO, SYSTEM_DATA should be ro, so I think that might want to change to
> what PROGRAM_PATH is now, and APP_DATA becomes what what SYSTEM_DATA was
> changed to be (some shared user folder). Or call it
> SHARED_DATA/SHARED_USER_DATA.
>
So, how about:

BUNDLED_DATA => read-only, internal data ... detected at runtime
depending on platform
APP_DATA => read-only, external data ... constant location depending on platform

Your program would pick one of the two, depending on how you the
programmer decide to distribute your game. Most would probably stick
with BUNDLED_DATA. This is what the demos would use.

If you wanted, you could check both places. But Allegro would not do
that automatically.

Then you would have:

USER_DATA => writable, external data for one user
SHARED_DATA => writable, external data for all users

There would be a _SETTINGS folder for all the above, with the
exception of BUNDLED, as it makes no sense. So there would be
APP_SETTINGS, USER_SETTINGS, SHARED_SETTINGS.

The suggested locations are only approximate... Should be obvious what
I really mean:

[linux and OSX]
BUNDLED_DATA => /path/to/exe OR /path/to/osx/bundle/resource/

APP_DATA => /usr/share/app.name/
USER_DATA => /home/username/.app.name/
SHARED_DATA => /usr/share/app.name/.shared/

APP_SETTINGS => /etc/app.name/
USER_SETTINGS => /home/username/etc/.app.name/
SHARED_SETTINGS => /etc/app.name/.shared/

I don't know where the appropriate SHARED data should go, so I made up
a hidden .shared folder. It would have to be world writable.

[windows]
BUNDLED_DATA => c:\path\to\exe\

APP_DATA => c:\programdata\prog.name\ (Vista) or c:\Documents and
Settings\All Users\Application Data\prog.name (XP)
USER_DATA => c:\users\username\prog.name\
SHARED_DATA => c:\users\public\prog.name\

APP_SETTINGS => c:\programdata\prog.name\ (Vista) or c:\Documents and
Settings\All Users\Application Data\prog.name (XP)
USER_SETTINGS => c:\users\username\prog.name\
SHARED_SETTINGS => c:\users\public\prog.name\

In Windows, data/settings are the same thing. (Traditionally, people
liked to put settings in the registry.)

Am I missing anything?

--
Matthew Leverton