[dforrest]

Now that it appears that end of activity evaluations will soon be available, and we already have saved activities and screenshots, I would like to make a suggestion. Can these be saved in a folder with a name which is specific to the OR content name and the route, and is a readily accessible location (not in /user/username/...)?

[Garry]

This sounds a really good idea.
Why not create a separate folder for each within the route folder and save the files there?
Garry

[James Ross]

dforrest, on 19 February 2018 - 04:14 AM, said:

Now that it appears that end of activity evaluations will soon be available, and we already have saved activities and screenshots, I would like to make a suggestion. Can these be saved in a folder with a name which is specific to the OR content name and the route, and is a readily accessible location (not in /user/username/...)?

Hmm, there's a bunch of options here:

• Windows has a "Pictures" folder and a "Saved Games" folder, which would be the recommended place to put those two things (we already do put pictures there), but how many of you actually knew about the "Saved Games" folder? It's not hidden in the same way the current "AppData" folder is, but it also isn't visible in any of the default interfaces in File Explorer as far as I can see - you need to go to your profile folder first, which shows up with your username in the "Desktop" folder in File Explorer.
  
• Then there's the custom places, like just dumping stuff in the "Documents" folder: many games do this, just creating a folder of their game name and letting rip. I'm not a particular fan of this because it clutters up the user's personal space with stuff they perhaps didn't want there, but it does make it more accessible than the "Saved Games" folder and especially "AppData".
  
• A compromise I've seen a few games make is to use the "Documents" folder, but to put everything inside a "My Games" folder, e.g. "Documents\My Games\Open Rails". That keeps things discoverable/accessible to the user, but keeps clutter down.

My preference would be to use approach 3 (the compromise):

• (profile)\Pictures\Open Rails - screenshots
  
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Saved Games - for saved games
  
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Saved Games\Save Packs - for save packs
  
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Evaluations - for evaluations
  
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\testinglog.txt and TestingSummary.csv - the "Testing" function in the menu

The other things in "AppData" currently are:

• Load Cache - should stay in "AppData" but move from "AppData\Roaming" to "AppData\Local", as it is a machine-specific cache of information
  
• ActivityEditor.pref.xml - should stay exactly where it is, as it is a configuration file

As for the organisation within these folders, I agree that for the saved games and evaluations it probably makes sense to create sub-folders with the route name and put the files there. The saved files already start with the activity name (or route name for exploring) so just one sub-folder should be enough here (use the same naming scheme for evaluations).

I do not think it makes sense to do this for screenshots, not least because in the future the game engine will include the menu functionality and a screenshot of that has no route. But I could be convinced otherwise.

[Jovet]

I'd advocate for consistency between "My Documents" and "My Pictures". Use the same folder structure in both.

However, I also do not agree that "game files" are documents. Letters to my mother that I create myself and activity briefings are completely unrelated. One thought could be to keep everything in AppData\Roaming or AppData\Local (as appropriate) and provide Start Menu shortcuts to the appropriate folders when OR is installed. Additionally, one or more shortcuts could be provided in or under My Documents/My Pictures.

[James Ross]

Jovet, on 29 March 2018 - 05:09 PM, said:

However, I also do not agree that "game files" are documents. Letters to my mother that I create myself and activity briefings are completely unrelated. One thought could be to keep everything in AppData\Roaming or AppData\Local (as appropriate) and provide Start Menu shortcuts to the appropriate folders when OR is installed. Additionally, one or more shortcuts could be provided in or under My Documents/My Pictures.

When you say "game files", are you referring to just evaluations, or both evaluations and saved games?

I did consider shortcuts from Documents to AppData, but I think I prefer having the files themselves there.

[cjakeman]

James Ross, on 29 March 2018 - 11:59 AM, said:

My preference would be to use approach 3 (the compromise):

• (profile)\Pictures\Open Rails - screenshots
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Saved Games - for saved games
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Saved Games\Save Packs - for save packs
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Evaluations - for evaluations
• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\testinglog.txt and TestingSummary.csv - the "Testing" function in the menu

And can I ask where would you choose to put the webpages that we might use to display live data on a secondary device?

Thanks,

[Jovet]

James Ross, on 30 March 2018 - 09:05 AM, said:

When you say "game files", are you referring to just evaluations, or both evaluations and saved games?

Both.

But I also support a UI option to let the user select where these files go from within OR.

[cjakeman]

cjakeman, on 01 April 2018 - 08:11 AM, said:

And can I ask where would you choose to put the webpages that we might use to display live data on a secondary device?

For now, I'll set the default folder as:

• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Web - webpages accessing the Open Rails API

[James Ross]

cjakeman, on 01 April 2018 - 08:11 AM, said:

And can I ask where would you choose to put the webpages that we might use to display live data on a secondary device?

As these files are all internal program files, they belong inside the installation directory - e.g. under Content\Web. They'll be distributed with the program and must work with no manual set-up, but users are free to have their own web server and content (or native apps, etc.) that use the APIs provided, and none of that third part stuff would need to go anywhere in particular.

Jovet, on 02 April 2018 - 09:29 AM, said:

Both.

Okay. It seems that the trickiness of accessing the saved files is worth moving them somewhere better, but I don't know that we've really explored (I don't remember, at least) why people want to access the saved games. Maybe just the save packs (the things designed to be shared) need to be made more visible? (They're also only created when asked.)

cjakeman, on 04 April 2018 - 07:42 AM, said:

For now, I'll set the default folder as:

• (profile)\Documents\My Games\Open Rails\Web - webpages accessing the Open Rails API

If you're after a place for people to drop files that will be automatically included in our built-in web server, this seems reasonable, but I would recommend serving such files from a subdirectory on the web server (e.g. http://localhost:port/user-files/) vs our built-in content (e.g. http://localhost:port/api/ and http://localhost:port/).

[cjakeman]

James Ross, on 05 April 2018 - 12:40 PM, said:

If you're after a place for people to drop files that will be automatically included in our built-in web server, this seems reasonable, but I would recommend serving such files from a subdirectory on the web server (e.g. http://localhost:port/user-files/) vs our built-in content (e.g. http://localhost:port/api/ and http://localhost:port/).

That's right. Yes, we can work with that; thanks.