Re: [pygame] cross-platform prefs storage?

[Derek Simkowiak <dereks@realloc.net>]

Jack Nutting wrote:
> I can probably think of more reasons, given time :)  I think it's also 
> simply a matter of personal conviction on my part, based on using 
> multi-user systems for the past 15 years, that per-user settings for 
> software preferences are usually the way to go.
	Some thoughts on this...

	Unlike networkable applications (like X, email, etc.), OpenGL usually requires you to be sitting in front of the hardware that you are using, even on Unix-based systems.  So the need for per-user config is not as strong as it is with other kinds of apps.

	Next, unlike other apps where a single .ini or .rc can hold all the necessary per-user information that you can think of, OpenGL-using applications generally have per-user textures, models, and other huge data files.

	Finally, hard drive space has become one of the cheapest components of the system.

	Thus, my vote would be for an easy, simple, per-install .ini file in the launch directory.  Then let users on multi-user systems each have their own per-user install, instead of a shared installation.

	Because Windows uses the registry, and Unix uses an ordered path (like /etc/osg/ then /usr/local/etc/osg/ then $HOME/.osg/) and other systems use who-knows-what I think trying to have system-wide installs in combination with per-user configurations is unnecessarily complicated.

	Of course if you're building a networked render farm things are different...  :)


--Derek