[Scummvm-devel] Windows experience

[J. King]

On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:34:43 -0500, Travis Howell <kirben at optusnet.com.au>  
wrote:

> On 26/01/2012 9:09 AM, Johannes Schickel wrote:
>> I would still love to see the save games in a easily accessable path by
>> default, i.e. unlike a subdir of %APPDATA%, since %APPDATA% does not
>> show in the explorer by default. That makes it even easier for users to
>> copy over the save files, despite us having links to the save game
>> directory.
>
> Actually accessing that area under Windows 2000/XP is as simple as
> running '%APPDATA%'. Or people could just enable hidden files, under the
> Folder Options of Windows Explorer. We could add these notes to the
> README file, to help people too.

That seems unnecessarily onerous to me, given that there is a viable  
alternative.

> The standard location for saved games under Windows Vista/7 was
> mentioned throughout the previous discussion, but not that fact it was
> no longer a hidden area.

I should have mentioned it's not hidden; I'd thought it obvious from  
context.  Oh, well.

> I'm against changing the default save games directory again, since these
> changes have already been made to ScummVM. We will have users who are
> using the new save games directory, which would require further  
> migration.

This is, I think, a sensible position.  I wonder, however, if there isn't  
a solution which can meet both perceived needs.  It seems to me that one  
should be able to create a symbolic link at install-time:

mkdir "%appdata%\ScummVM"
mkdir "%appdata%\ScummVM\Saved games"
mklink /d "%userprofile%\Saved Games\ScummVM" "%appdata%\ScummVM\Saved  
games"

If it fails (because symbolic links are not supported by the installed  
version of Windows, or because conditions do not meet the ridiculous  
requirements for symlinks in Windows 7), it can be silently ignored and no  
harm is done.  If it succeeds, saved games are in a visible location which  
is accessible, searchable and generally more friendly, without the need  
for any changes in ScummVM itself, and it need not even be an advertised  
feature.  On the other hand, it might perhaps be confusing if User A has  
the link and User B does not when the only different between them is that  
B's user profile is on a network share, or what have you.

-- 
J. King