LDCad 1.5 Alpha 1 (win+linux)

[Roland Melkert]

Hello Roland.

As you probably know, I announced our effort to maintain the whole SW-chain for making LDraw instructions. I also want to include LDCad to this chain. I know it is not open-source so it cannot be handled in the same way but I can make Linux packages of non-free SW as well, this is not a problem. What I need is to have a multi-user version: a configuration in /etc with an optional overlay in $HOME/.config/ldcad . Would be this possible for 1.5 ?
Of course, I'm open to discuss another solution, the above is a suggestion, nothing more

Nice project sort of a cross platform AIOI.

I would appreciate a package / packaging script very much. I've researched making Debian packages (I currently compile on Debian 7.5) but it seemed to be very 'complicated' for new users

LDCad can be used in a data/executable split way (the windows setup does it too) by using an LDCad.cfg besides the main executable. That file is readonly and dictates where the program get it's data (partbin files etc). For example the windows version setup writes this LDCad.cfg:

Code:

[paths]
logDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/logs
cfgDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/config
guiDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/gui
resourcesDir=<appDir>/resources
colorBinDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/colorBin
partBinDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/partBin
examplesDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/examples
templatesDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/templates
donorsDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/donors
shadowDir=<userAppDataDir>/<appSubDir>/shadow
dirSeeds=<appDir>/seeds

<userAppDataDir> maps to the value of the HOME env var in Linux but I've never really tested it though.
<dirSeeds> Points to where the clean starting data (zip) files are located. Those are synced with the target locations on every program start so if the location is user depended each will end up with its own set of files.

If needed I could add more location templates?

If the cfg file is not there stuff default to be looked/placed relative to the main exe (archive versions). The locations can also be abs if needed.

I'll add the format of LDCad.cfg to the technical documentation soon as I realized it's the only file currently missing explanation on my site.