SC4 Plugins Structure Discussion

[monkeywater 910]

I'm going to go against the grain a bit, but my method is very similar to @marksausage

 

If I have a lot I need to remove from the game, especially if I am using it for a while, I might only have the data given from the lot query.  And often that will not be the content creators name, or team (are teams even relevant these days?).  So that comes down to lot name and function.  Often i download a lot thinking I will use it, and then never do, so I prune my plugins folder regularly.  (Also I have like 1 gig left on this HD)

I have a folder structure that I like, and I purposefully remove things from the

/team/user/collection/random acronym meaning nothing to me/actual thing/

folder structure that so many installers use

If I have to remove a lot, the last thing I want to worry about is "was this by BSC or pegproductions?"

 

example

/industry/dirty/name of lot

/rail/HSR/name of lot

/parks/name of lot or pack

/dependencies/

/commercial/CS$$/name

I'm not perfectly organized, now and then i wish I arranged it by:

/commercial/4x4/tall/name

/commercial/4x2/short/name

so I have some of those folders in there too.

etc, so my commercial folder needs some consistency.  I like footprint size as I like looking into the plugins folder to see what custom stuff I have for a given lot size I want to zone, and sometimes I forget to zone appropriate zones for custom growables, especially if weird.  (the same for industry, eg a growable 15x7 I have)

If something comes with both a landmark, a CS$$ and a CO$$ (etc) I move each part into various folders, sometimes deleting parts (I never keep nonfunctional landmarks when a CO or CS is available, eg)

This is the 2nd time I have installed this game, and the first I used the default paths generated by installers.  Now with mine with overall much less nested folders, the game seems faster, even though I have a ton more custom content.

 

I think the highest level of the organization system should be by function, not by creator.

 

 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Yes, that is the way I approach it for my downloaded stuff, too (you wouldn't believe the amount of anal retention visible in my plugins structure!).

However, this discussion is about the upload side - how do we offer stuff on the STEX? Sorting it into categories along the lines you described would be difficult, not least because one and the same building can be offered in several versions. Now if you have a modern building that can be used as high-tech industry, city college or hospital - how do you organise the ZIP inside? If you throw the lot files into individual folders depending on function, where do you keep the model? Or do we expect uploaders to upload three ZIPs, one for each function? Can we agree on a categorisation? What if a building has two or more categories by default, such as a landmark version of a commercial building that's offered as a reward? Is it "Commercial"? Or "Landmark"? Or "Reward"?

I think @Tyberius06 was worried about a simple default structure that would allow at least some degree of control for the novice / "basic" user, the main point being that non-game files are automatically placed somewhere outside the plugins folder.

With the suggested scheme, a user who is lost could at least post a screenshot and ask for the item - just like in the "Can't find it - ask here!" thread -, and if the others can identify it, he would be able to locate it in his plugins.

This is not the one solution to end them all, and it is not the most refined system. However, it is practical and manageable, avoids the problems I outlined in the above paragraph, and is still vastly preferable over slapping it all into one folder haphazardly.

"Power users" like you and me will, of course, still arrange things to their liking - which won't be made more difficult by the suggested system, either - as opposed to the installers that the system is meant to replace!

[Tyberius06 12,267]

@monkeywater

First thing. This topic (by default) was never about how ones are organizing their plugin folder. It's intersting to know and discussing ideas and it's an addition to the main topic, but it is just additional information about ones personal taste of organizing their plugin folder by themselves.
The organization (which was meant to be for active Custom Content Creators and uploaders for the first place) or folder structure system, what I proposed have two purpose. First it gives a general and unified order for players who don't bother themselves organizing thier plugin folder. Second it gaves an easy access and recognition for the plugins at one's back up folder on their HDD. For example I have a huge and constantly growing collection of various plugins in my back-up plugin "vault" (atm I have 2500 cleaned and organized files, 2000 from the LEX which are waiting extracting from exe installers than they go back to LEX in an updated format, than other 1000+ is totally mess at moment, and I lost my back-ups last year so I haven't been able to redownload all of those stuffs... Meanwhile my gaming plugin folders - there are 4-5 - were intact). Or there is a recent example, just take a look at the recently recovered SimCity Polska files. In a few cases they at least contain a name in their title, but mostly you don't know anything about these files and they are mostly in Polish... Now I'm not fluent polish at all...

So yepp, as T Wrecks said, I wish a basic, standard structure from the uploader side, than the downloader can decide later if one wants to use a different structure, as you do. In my back-up folder it used to be categories for all the plugins (like: residentals, commercials, Landmark, Landmarks with jobs, transportation etc... in the cases where a plugin had more purposes I chose the most relevant and put the back-up files under that categories - I'm talking about back-ups not the actuall playing plugin folder) and I use noticies in the titles, just an example: 
BLaM FK HIDP Bistagne Coal Mine Single Pit (landmark - I-D) (main folder in my back up this contains actually the images and a readme.txt what i copied from the download page)

BLaM\Fukuda\HIDP Bistagne Coal Mine Single Pit\models lots

Just to feel the difference here is how you can get the file from the STEX currently:

mine1.zip ------>and directly in the zip: bistagne_mine_32ece57f.SC4Lot, mine6-0x5ad0e817_0x32e92186_0x30000.SC4Model, sing1.JPG, sing2.JPG

It's pretty nonsense. Okay, there are images, but they don't tell anything about the upload. If you download this and don't treat it right that moment, half a year later you won't necessarily know what the hell was that.
So to avoiding the above mess, I asked the current and future custom content creators, to consider to use a unified folder structure system, and I showed an example, how I'm doing it. On LEX basicly most of the files will get a similiar treatment after I/we extract the files from the exe installers.

26 minutes ago, T Wrecks said:

"Power users" like you and me will, of course, still arrange things to their liking - which won't be made more difficult by the suggested system, either - as opposed to the installers that the system is meant to replace!

Yepp, exactly...

I hope it helps to clear what I wish to achive with this thread in general.

- Tyberius