[invalid] Issue distributing standalone games built on 3.5.0

[Ishmaru]

One small question, I tried to put a Standalone game built on the 3.5.0 beta 2 engine on someone else computer and i would not run on hers when i simply copy and paste main directory. The exact same version works just fine on the computer of origin. I believe this issue stems from not having the application data folders installed.   In previous versions i could copy and paste the directory just fine. How would someone create and release a standalone version using 3.5.0?

[Omega]

There isn't any changes that I know of that would require anything but the install directory... Sadly, MegaGlest does require the usage of a user directory, but it should have no problems when there isn't one already, as it should automatically create one. Unfortunately, even vanilla Glest was more portable (eg: a flash drive) than MegaGlest thanks to the creation of said folder. What error message is given?

[Ishmaru]

There isn't any changes that I know of that would require anything but the install directory... Sadly, MegaGlest does require the usage of a user directory, but it should have no problems when there isn't one already, as it should automatically create one. Unfortunately, even vanilla Glest was more portable (eg: a flash drive) than MegaGlest thanks to the creation of said folder. What error message is given?

Unfortunately, I cant see what the error was due to another error saying that glest.log was missing. (maybe this was the primary error i dont know) Does this now mean megaglest can no longer be just copied to a flash and moved without an installer??

I ziped megaglest directory put it on flash and unzipped it on another computer. I did rename megaglest.exe and the main directory. I have always done this untill 3.5.0 betas with no problems. This may have even worked on 3.5.0 beta 1 but not sure.

[Omega]

There isn't any changes that I know of that would require anything but the install directory... Sadly, MegaGlest does require the usage of a user directory, but it should have no problems when there isn't one already, as it should automatically create one. Unfortunately, even vanilla Glest was more portable (eg: a flash drive) than MegaGlest thanks to the creation of said folder. What error message is given?

Unfortunately, I cant see what the error was due to another error saying that glest.log was missing. (maybe this was the primary error i dont know) Does this now mean megaglest can no longer be just copied to a flash and moved without an installer??

I ziped megaglest directory put it on flash and unzipped it on another computer. I did rename megaglest.exe and the main directory. I have always done this untill 3.5.0 betas with no problems. This may have even worked on 3.5.0 beta 1 but not sure.

The log file is stored in the user directory, so my best guess is they overlooked that and made it depend on that (rawr!). I'll classify that as a bug. Try copying the user directory (in [evil] appdata if using windows, haven't the foggiest about linux) to the other person's computer just to confirm this is the problem.

Oh, and yeah, that means you can't distribute it standalone, thus why I mark it up as a bug. Meh, never liked using the user directory anyway (and appdata is worse).

[softcoder]

The default location for data files has changed in 3.5.0 to follow recommended paths for data in the respective Operating systems (Linux in the user home folder, Windows in the users AppData)

With that said its easy enough to override this behaviour simply edit glest.ini in the application root folder as follows:

Code: [Select]

UserData_Root=$APPLICATIONPATH/mydata/
This will tell megaglest to look in the subfolder mydata for mod data (as it did in previous versions)

Is that the information you are looking for?

[tomreyn]

Unfortunately, I cant see what the error was due to another error saying that glest.log was missing. (maybe this was the primary error i dont know) Does this now mean megaglest can no longer be just copied to a flash and moved without an installer??

Not at all. Omega seems to have a tendency to hand out misleading information on MG lately. It's okay to talk about aspects you don't know much about but you should then state so.

MG does now support to use individual data and configuration storage locations per user, based on environment variables, and it does so by default. It does not require it, though. If you take a look at glest.ini you will spot a configuration directive named UserData_Root. On Linux, this defaults to $HOME/.megaglest/, and on Windows it defaults to $APPDATA\megaglest\. You can obviously change this setting and instead use any other 'hardcoded' directory, such as the MegaGlest directory itself + mydata, resulting in the same behaviour there's been in previous versions. A relative path such as mydata/ (Linux) or mydata\ (Windows] may also work, but I'm not sure about this (have not tried).

In addition to the possibility of configuring Userdata_Root in the .ini, there are also command line arguments you may pass when running MegaGlest:

Code: (Excerpt from 'megaglest --help') [Select]

--data-path=x Sets the game data path to x
                     example: ./megaglest.bin --data-path=/usr/local/game_data/
--ini-path=x Sets the game ini path to x
                     example: ./megaglest.bin --ini-path=~/game_config/
--log-path=x Sets the game logs path to x
                     example: ./megaglest.bin --log-path=~/game_logs/


I ziped megaglest directory put it on flash and unzipped it on another computer. I did rename megaglest.exe and the main directory. I have always done this untill 3.5.0 betas with no problems. This may have even worked on 3.5.0 beta 1 but not sure.

I'm not sure why this isn't working for you, and I can't currently test this easily. I suggest you run MegaGlest with the --verbose command line argument or activate debug logging to get more useful output and to be able to determine what exactly is going wrong.

[Omega]

Not at all. Omega seems to have a tendency to hand out misleading information on MG lately. It's okay to talk about aspects you don't know much about but you should then state so.

Sorry, all the changes get me lagging behind again. I should probably shut my mouth for a while. Though, I don't see how I was technically wrong, since the log file is indeed in the user folder (appdata, to be more specific) and I did not claim to know what was wrong, only offer a possible solution (it can't find the log? Try creating the log).

Testing it myself, I could not replicate this though, even when I tried removing the megaglest appdata folder.