Files/Folders Management question

[greener07 8]

Hi,

So there are 2 plugin folders...

 

C:\Documents and Settings\name\My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\

 

and

 

C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Plugins\

 

So which folder do you use? Currently I am using both but shall I take all files from 

 

C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Plugins\ to

C:\Documents and Settings\name\My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\

 

********************

 

Also how to organize so much addons and their dependencies?

 

 

[Magneto 316]

Although you can use both, it's probably better to stick with only one folder location for clarity's sake. I believe most players use the Plugins under /My Documents as it's easier to reach but all in all it doesn't make any difference.

 

As for plugins organization, what I like to do is separate type of content into large folders and I put a number at beginning of their name so I have easy control on the loading sequence. I don't have much main folders but each of them have quite some subfolders:

 

000 Dependencies (props, textures)

100 Mods (terrain mod, tree controller, game fixes, MMPs...)

200 Infrastructure (civic buildings, transport mods & stations)

300 Eye Candy (parks, walls, seawalls, fillers...)

400 RCI (residential $ $$ $$$, commercial $ $$ $$$, industrial $ $$ $$$)

500 NAM

600 Last to load (z___NAM, all mods that must load at the end)

 

Of course this is only a suggestion but that works for me. Everyone to its own preferences...

[JP Schriefer 5,591]

I put everything in "My Documents" folder, I have 5 gigabytes of downloaded plugins for several years, so it's a mess. Now I have no way of organizing more = /

[infamousjbe 593]

Only thing kept in my Program/.../Plugins folder, besides the background images, is the Extra Cheat mod (seems more stable located here) and the Expanded UI mod. All others are kept in the User/.../Plugins.

 

An example of my plugins archive organization as a general idea.

Main - (Subs) folder structure.

 

Automata

Canals

Civics - (Fire, Police, Churches, Health, Transportation, Power, Water, Garbage, Education)

Commercial - (CS$, CS$$, CS$$$, CO$$, CO$$$)

Dependencies - (Props, Textures)

Fillers - (Walls, Parking, Fences)

Industrial - (I-A, I-D, I-M, I-HT)

Landmarks - (needs further organizing into plop LM, plop w/ Jobs, diagonal or not etc)

MMPs

Mods - (Terrain, Fixes)

NAM

Parks 

Residential - (R$, R$$, R$$$)

 

There are a few z__ folders too, but didn't want to confuse things. If you pay attention to the Readmes, you'll know when to use the various folder naming system to get certain custom content to work properly with other addons.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

To be more explicit, we have to remember that all operating systems these days are multi-user and an administrator can set up as many user accounts as he likes.  This is why there are two plugin folders.

 

The one in C:\Program Files is global to all users on the computer.  The one in C:\<user name>\ is strictly under the control of <user name> and normally is not shared with other users.  For a single-user machine, I suppose this is moot.

 

Since the Plugins folder in Program Files is loaded along with the rest of the game before any attention is given to the <user name> files, one must be careful what goes there.  Besides the sky textures, Maxis in a burst of Microsoft-like hubris, puts any published custom content by them there.  I take it out, and keep only the sky textures.

 

Let's talk about game management for a moment.  If you want to set up two or more completely different SC4 environments, all you need to do after installing the game as an administrator is create separate accounts for each instance.  When you start the game the standard user's structure is created by the game's code.  Pretty simple, eh?  No reinstall because of the global access to the stuff in Program Files.

 

So that's the end of Operating System User's Tips 101.

[greener07 8]

Hmmm....

 

I am maintaining an EXcel file for the time being...

 

Thank you to all of you

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Using an external application like Excel strikes me as rather a lot of work, when you can just use a folder with subfolders to keep track of your downloads.  To give you an example here is the top level of my Downloads folder:

 

tree -L 1 Downloads
Downloads
├── Archi
├── Blender
├── CNet
├── C++ReferenceCard
├── Dynex
├── Fluendo
├── GamersGate
├── irrlict
├── KernelDebug
├── Microsoft
├── mspaint
├── muse score
├── NAM Team
├── NTCore
├── OpenGL
├── Oracle
├── PHP Tutorial
├── Rivit
├── SC4RelatedDownloads
├── SunMicrosystems
├── Tony Leva
└── Virtucity

22 directories, 0 files
 

[greener07 8]

Actually...

what I was thinking that say I downloaded 1 main Mod.

 

Now say that mod has 12 dependencies...

 

So I wanted to keep track of that... those 12 dependencies are for this main mod ...