WINDOWS suggestion - hate "MY DOCUMENTS" folder

[oglop]

Hello the OpenTTD is awsome game but I don't like that the all settings and saves are automaticly created in MY DOCUMENTS folder.
Is here any option to change it into game directory ?

and there is my suggestion ... to make it possible to change: all downloads, saves and other game things. Could be moved into game directory.

Thanks oglop.

[Voyager One]

Just to ask you briefly: Why? Why does it matter?

[Arie-]

Easy, just place your .cfg file in your game directory. Beware though, would you want to make backups of your documents / save games etc., this now requires an additional step: copying those specific files as well besides your "my Documents" folder.

[Lord Aro]

To simplify what Arie said:
Put all OpenTTD related files and folders into your game directory
To put them anywhere else you also need a shortcut to the .exe in that place. See section 4.2(?) of the readme

[Brumi]

Beware though, would you want to make backups of your documents / save games etc., this now requires an additional step: copying those specific files as well besides your "my Documents" folder.

I think a backup of the My Documents folder is not needed, the operation is not that dangerous.

[Nite Owl]

Beware though, would you want to make backups of your documents / save games etc., this now requires an additional step: copying those specific files as well besides your "my Documents" folder.

I think a backup of the My Documents folder is not needed, the operation is not that dangerous.

The point is not that the operation of changing the default location of files is dangerous. One of the reasons that Windows (since XP I believe) keeps everything in the Documents folder is so that if you do partial backups (as opposed to full system backups) then you only have to backup that one folder instead of searching for individual files that are scattered in other folders that are all over your hard drive. Added to this is the fact that with both Vista and Windows 7 you have limited write abilities to certain folders depending on the status your user account.

[Arie-]

Yep, in the old days each game directory would have a sub directory for save games. Would a game be installed in a system folder (program files e.g.) this would cause problems(indeed from XP on), only an installer should have to write things into this folder, a game executable not. This was no problem with win98 etc because there were less restrictions, but this also made that operating system more vulnerable for exploits. Therefore documents/savegames etc. should be stored in a user folder, also allowing for easier backups as everything important to a user is stored in the same location.

[Phreeze]

i just hate it to have 200 folders in the my documents...i have to work with the my documents folder to really find documents, and have to scroll for ages to find the right one -.- every game puts a folder inside the mydocs ... got 54 folders now...

[planetmaker]

Sort your documents properly into sub-folders and make a direct desktop short-cut to the most-often used folders.

The whole point of the My Documents folder is to find ALL user-generated files there. Breaking that would be a serious design flaw.

[Phreeze]

i'm not ok with you.
a) my desktop is clean, not a single shortcut.
b) My documents as the name says should be for documents. MS should create a "my programs stuff they want to put somewhere in commun" for program related stuff
c) i do have subfolders, as i only created 4-5 folders myself, the rest is program folder like "anno 1404 savegame", "nhl 09 savegame", "openttd" etc

[Eddi]

Agreed, it could have been better designed if it was defined to be a "My Documents\My Games" folder. But it didn't, and it's not up to OpenTTD to define it.

[Arie-]

Maybe "application data" or "local settings" is an option, but I'm no expert in that field. My suggestion, stop complaining/compile your own binary/use another OS*.

*I do not want to be a b****, but it's just how windows works. Other games apparently use the same approach, why should OpenTTD do it differently.

[ZEROGOKI1983]

I hate the fact that games use the "my Documents" folder because its in the system partition. You know the very first you formate when something goes horrably wrong with your windows. I started installing everything on other partitions just so I don't loose anything in the case of a major crash. The partition window is on is the last you should put stuff you want to keep.

[Zuu]

Then configure Windows to put the entire My Documents on another partition. Much more clean than trying to change the standard behaviour of many many programs.

[Eddi]

changing the location is fairly trivial. just right click the desktop icon, change the path in the properties, and it even asks you whether you want to move over your files to that new location

[orudge]

Windows Vista introduced a "%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games" directory, which games are in theory supposed to use. I've not seen any do so yet, though, probably because it's a faff to have saved games be in one place on XP or below, and somewhere else on Vista/7.

It really would be nice if all games could store their saved games in the same place. (I recently lost my old GTA4 saved games, because the games are scattered amongst a load of random GFWL directories under %APPDATA%, helpfully enough.) But alas, it seems that that's something we're not going to have any time soon. A subdirectory under My Documents is at least a reasonable place to expect to find games, which is what OpenTTD does.

[broodje]

It is not logical in microsoft aplications either, as far as I know mails are stored under app data as far as I know. I know for a fact that Thunderbird does so (after once having to restore a backup).
If openttd would follow this logic, the cfg files and GRF's should be stored under the my applications folder, while the save games should be stored in the my documents map.

[ZEROGOKI1983]

changing the location is fairly trivial. just right click the desktop icon, change the path in the properties, and it even asks you whether you want to move over your files to that new location

Didn't know that, thank you.

[ZxBiohazardZx]

Sort your documents properly into sub-folders and make a direct desktop short-cut to the most-often used folders.

The whole point of the My Documents folder is to find ALL user-generated files there. Breaking that would be a serious design flaw.

whole windows XP/Vista/7 have a design flaw:

the C partition (OS-only) is reduced to a minimalistic size
the D partition (data) is empty for users to use

however ALL the windows programs, installations etc use the (way to small for this) C partition to store downloads, user documents etc etc unless the user (like me) moves these defaults to the D (data ) partition manually

pretty annoying design flaw already

the installer should have an option to specify the preferred folder (default there can be the mydocuments folder)