SC4 Plugins Structure Discussion

[Tyberius06 12,184]

Hi everybody!

I start this topic as a general discussion and brainstorming thread regarding that I started to work (besides my general lotting stuffs which is running under the Heretic Projects name) on some much administrative-ish side projects on both Simtropolis/STEX and on the LEX.

You may read this announcement from @CorinaMarie about my involvement to helping the STEX Team's work and make a little house keeping work. Also almost at the same time there a discussion was started in the Sharing Plugins Folders - Discussion topic about helping the SC4 Devotion staffs' work and making the files on the LEX more user friendly. Regarding the files on LEX, I started to extract the files from the exe installers and placing them under their given folder structure. I call this process "de-installerizing".

At some point on the LEX the uploads will get an update following the new system. Also the provided readmes will get an update regarding the dependency links.

On the STEX as the announcement states, I started to work on Paeng's files, first I tend to upload the still unavailable files with readmes and proper folder structures. After that I'll go through his already uploaded files and update them with a proper folder structure. And this is step one.

As you may know there are thousands of files on the exchanges without proper folder structures and with the Installation advice to copy the content of the zip into the plugin folder, which means (most of the times) in the lack of folder structure, that you get a bunch of model and lot files in a confusing order into the root of your plugin folder, which can't really be identified later, if you want to get the rid of it some of them. So that's why I'm following a pretty straight forward folder structure system (if you downloaded either one of my uploads, or my Paeng uploads you did see that) for easier access for the players.

In the future I plan to do the same treatment on as much files on STEX as much I can. In all cases the original uploads will be intact, I won't change anything they will stay there as they are, but there will be a second option. The most common example of this process what the Staff used in the case of Nob's Ftexture. The STEX contained an outdated version of the file, and basically most of the people didn't know that they not necessarily have to go to the SimCity 4 China page to get this file, because it was already on the STEX. So the original upload were left intact on the STEX and got two updated version: one was the original latest version from SC4 China and one was from myself providing a more user friendly approach with a proper folder structure.

Now to get to the point after this long introduction. I would like to hear/read your opinion about my planned/suggested folder structure. I use the same method for myself with my uploads (and during while I'm organizing my plugins back-up on my HDD). The idea would be if you, guys and girls, ladies and gentlemen are up for it, to make a more or less unified and universal folder structure system for the users/players and we, as custom content creators would be following this system.

 

So let's see what I'm talking about. The folder/subfolder structure what I use is the following (it's just an example) inside the UPLOADED CUSTOM CONTENT.ZIP:
 

Team Name folder \ (if there is a team)	Creator's Name folder\	Content Name folder\	Actual content (it can contain other subfolders)
NYBT\	Darknono35\	Olympic Tower\	lots, models, descs, other subfolders
	Heretic Projects\	Slope Side Walls\	lots etc…
	Simmer2\	Props\	SM2 Prop Pack vol.1

 

In practice this would mean a folder hierarchy which collects the similar contents in the player's active plugin folder under the same name. The red marked cells mean the actual folder which goes to the root of the player plugin folder. So if one is playing with NYBT plugins from multiple creators, in ones plugin folder there is a NYBT folder which collects all the NYBT's plugins, than the next level is the Creator folder which collects all the NYBT plugins from one Creator (in the above case this is Darknono, but another case it could be Aaron Graham too) etc… If one is playing with my stuffs, that means all my stuff is collected under the Heretic Project name. In the case of Paeng's recently uploaded plugins (by me), the main folder is the Paeng which goes to the root of the plugin folder.

In every case the possible documentations (like readme and pictures) are taking place outside this main folder – they can go into a Documentations or Readme or any other folder, or they can directly take place into the zip, but outside of the main (Team Name or Creator Name) folder, so when the player is following the instructions and copying the contents of the zip or unzip the plugins into the plugin folder, than these additional and from the point of view of the game itself really useless files won't go into the plugin folder directly or they will be in the root, where they can be found and deleted easily.

So I'm asking your opinion about this kind of folder hierarchy organization, and as a custom content creator would you consider to use it in your uploads? (Nonetheless it would be a huge help in my work with on both STEX and LEX because as I said in the introduction, I'm about to do this process with the already released older stuffs.)

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I had no idea that when you dragged and dropped a folder into someplace with a folder of the same name that it automatically organized the subfolders. I would have assumed that it would just come up with a bunch of naming conflict windows. Is this something new with Windows 10? Or have I been completely oblivious to this my entire life?

All in all it seems like a very elegant way of doing things. The user truly only has to drag and drop it over.

Two things that come to mind are that it would look awkward getting a zip with a folder with just the author's name in it. They'd have to understand what the "system" is, or else they'd be confused about why the content isn't in the root folder (or would this be self explanatory to most people, and I'm just an idiot?). The other thing is how teams are handled, because some authors will have their own independent releases and then releases for different teams, but in an author-based organization, you'd expect everything by one author to be in the same place. This isn't unique to your system, I think everyone who organizes by author (most people, I think) runs into the same problem and finds their own way to deal with it. I personally organize by author and ignore teams, but I think most people have team folders like you've described. But I also know that a lot of people put all of my uploads into their mipro folder even though most of my uploads aren't mipro releases. These two things aren't things that I'm disagreeing with or opposing, but they're things that come to mind.

For naming conventions for the updated STEX files, at least the way the Nob's FTexture files are named kind of makes things confusing. I think it might be more clear if there's one that's titled with a very pure standard title like "NOB - Ftexture.zip" (with no further descriptors to make any confusion that this is the correct .zip (also I like using "-" as a separator but that's just personal preference)), and then to have the old one like you've had, but I think adding the word "legacy" to the title might do a good job of communicating that this is an old .zip that you don't have to concern yourself with unless you have a particular reason to. From a newbie perspective, "Original" seems like the main standard basic version that I want, and "Tyb Organized Version" seems like a confusing special variant, even though the opposite is true. Also I really like how you add the author to all the files.

So yeah very exciting. Thank you for doing this. Mass downloading takes a long time, but mass uploading takes take so much longer.

[markussaage 762]

I do use a similar strategy to organize my Plugins already, but to get a nice and smooth loading order I've added another layer of folders on top like:

02_Network Addon Mod
06_Residential
07_Commercial

etc etc... and than following with names of the creators as @Tyberius06 already described here.

Kind regards!

[Handyman 765]

I like the direction @Tyberius06 is going. As someone who only recently started to fill my Plugins folder, I have adopted a very similar approach. @Jasoncw brings up a point I have struggled with as far as content created within a team and also separately. I currently keep them in their own separate folders (when I can identify the creator). I have a question about the extra layer of folders used by @markussaage . Does the numbering replace the "zzz__" naming scheme to control load order?

To the point about content contained in ".exe" format, I am very happy to see this addressed. A lot of the content I downloaded was in this format and it was a concern for me because I am uncomfortable not knowing exactly what it will do when executed ( will it mess up my Plugins folder, security issues, etc. ).  I decided to set up a separate prefix / system with a fake Plugins folder which I use to expand the ".exe" files. Then I organize them and move them to the real game system. I keep this system at the ready for my own use and would be willing to use it to help move this project along. PM me if I can be of use.

[markussaage 762]

@HandymanWell, that depends.
SimCity usually starts loading the game files first, of course, then the SKUs.
When you add folders to the game to structure the files AND the loading order it goes like this (loose example):

01_NAM -> NAM subfolders with SC4Desc, SC4Model and SC4Lot files in it.
06_Residential -> Creators names A-Z followed by subfolders with SC4Desc, SC4Model and SC4Lot files again.
07_Commercial -> Creators names A-Z followed by subfolders with SC4Desc, SC4Model and SC4Lot files again and so on
... then
Plugins Folder root with files in it...
and then

01_NAM -> NAM subfolders with .DAT files in it
06_Residential -> Creators names A-Z followed by subfolders with .DAT files in it
07_Commercial -> Creators names A-Z followed by subfolders with .DAT files in it and so on

let's say, you have another folder called
Z_LastLoaded
with subfolders like this (the way the Windows Explorer lists the folder):

z______JENX_JUPITER_BETA v1
z_____JENX_AURORA_Beta
z____Beach Pack
z____MGB Mods
z____Mandelsoft Mods
z____Modular RR Props
z____NAM_FaceLift_Mod
z___Terrain_Sudden_Valley
z_Sea_Walls_Fix
z_Simfox_Day_n_Nite_Mod
z_Upgradeable_City_Halls

than the loading order would be:

a. z_Upgradeable_City_Halls    (one underscore)
b. z_Simfox_Day_n_Nite_Mod (one underscore)
c. z_Sea_Walls_Fix                    (one underscore)
d. z___Terrain_Sudden_Valley (three underscores)
e. z____Beach Pack                   (four underscores)
f. z____NAM_FaceLift_Mod    (four underscores)
g. z____Mandelsoft Mods        (four underscores)
h. z____Modular RR Props        (four underscores)
i. z_____JENX_AURORA_Beta  (five underscores)
j. z______JENX_JUPITER_BETA v1 (six underscores)

and again, it depends on what's inside the folder. Folders with SC4Desc, SC4Model and SC4Lot files are always loaded first, and then in another loading run the same folder again, if it contains .DAT files.
If you wanna see, how it goes with your files, go and check out rivit's SC4DataNode tool, put ALL your files in the \USERNAME\SimCity4\Plugins folder
and scan the folder with the tool. After the scan is complete, the list you'll see is the loading order your game setup loads the files. I don't know about, if that tool runs under Linux with Wine installed though.

And to your question:

A zzz_ (one underscore) folder would be loaded AFTER a folder with z_... folders (one underscore too)
but BEFORE z__... folders (two or more underscores).

The way, the zzz_... folders load now changed with NAM35 or so.

I hope, that was a little bit understandable.

Kind regards!

 

[Handyman 765]

Thanks @markussaage , that helped. I have tried to get Sc4DataNode working on Wine, but no luck so far. I don't currently have an issue with loading order but it would be nice to verify.

[markussaage 762]

3 minutes ago, Handyman said:

Thanks @markussaage , that helped. I have tried to get Sc4DataNode working on Wine, but no luck so far. I don't currently have an issue with loading order but it would be nice to verify.

No problem, you're welcome!

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

As @markussaage implied, plugin folder structure controls load-order, and because load-order can be critical, it is the primary driver behind plugin subfolder organization, hence the numbering and alphabetizing prefixes. Sources such as authors and projects are secondary. I personally prefer to use more different letter-prefixes rather than counting z's. YMMV.

Another consideration is maximum path length (which must fit the path to plugins even before appending everything beneath). If you have too many levels and the names are too long, then the game will be unable to open the files. Therefore you want to economize, especially inside mods that arrive with bloated folder structure/naming.

[Tyberius06 12,184]

17 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

I had no idea that when you dragged and dropped a folder into someplace with a folder of the same name that it automatically organized the subfolders.

Thanks for the replies. That was a good point. I haven't been using the "Windows Explorer" (I think this is the original name, because I have Hungarian Win 7) for ages, but now I tested what's happening. I'm using the Total Commander or it's advanced big bro' TC Ultima Prime (if one can remember the really old Norton Commander, now this is similiar, but well, we are in 2018 so...), and that app do the trick by default (I think, or maybe I had to set up not to ask permission to merge folders at every time), merge the same folder names into one on every level. I tried this with the Windows Explorer and it did ask my permission to merge the first level of folders with same name.

17 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

Two things that come to mind are that it would look awkward getting a zip with a folder with just the author's name in it.

The system what I would like in use as an universal/unified method, isn't new. The NYBT team, BSC, SFBT in some cases the VIP and TSC teams already used this formula in the past 10+ years. Of course in some cases the *.exe installers did the job, but the folder structures were given. Players haven't got confused I guess, why the contents are not directly in the root of the plugin folder so far.
The thing is that there isn't an unified way how the Custom Content creators/uploaders handle these things. 
In some cases there are folder(s) in the ZIP like: Jasoncw - Perry Station\actuall contents. So the player has a Jasoncw - Perry Station folder in ones plugin folder. What I did for myself that I separated the Jasoncw from the Perry Station to collect all the Jasoncw materials in one place, so I gave it to this structure: Jasoncw\Perry Stastion\actuall contents. I'm talking about at this point the INGAME/active Plugin folders. If it's a mipro or BSP material, than BSP or mipro\Jasoncw\Perry Station. For myself the parent folder on the back-up drive is the same folder (little bit renamed) as the zip folder, but I put little note for myself like (trans - rail - passanger), or Co$$, or (civic - education), or (landmark - Cs$$) etc... 
In other cases there isn't a name for the Creator just a folder which says: tramstations, or cs$, or hospital - and inside the folder the actuall model and desc contents. Or we get something like this from the same creator (just an example) in the zips: Tramstops, next upload, XY - Bustops, and then XY tramstops v2, than tramstops and busstops, X - houses, houses vol 2., ZK station, than later we get this XY\Trams set vol 3 etc...
I think my point is clear here. It's rather confusing, because than YX is coming and releasing a Tramstops folder too... Now which one is from whom?
In most of the cases currently only the zip name indicates anything what's in it and if we got a readme, the filename of the readme (if it's not just "readme"' ). Sometimes you get the files right in the zip without anything, no folders, no readme, no images... In a lot of cases I read in the readme (of course where it was provided) as a suggestion that you may want to make an XY folder into your plugin folder and put the files there. For example I saw this message in some of the BLaM Team readmes where designated folder structure wasn't provided. The point is to make this easier for them.
What I'm suggesting is a basic folder structure. I don't think that the player will be confused, BUT in the cases where I'll give the files these uplifts in the future, I'll mention in the ChangeLog, that the installation is to place the XY folder into your plugin folder. If a Custom Content creator uploads a file, one can do the same, I guess. So I don't think people will get confused because they had to fight with different methods in the past decade or more.  

As for the Teams. 2-3 years ago, when I started to organize my back ups at the first time I was wondering what would be the better and I chose to place the teams above the creators. The Teams in a lot of cases are representing a style, a way of doing/making things, like theme packs (NYBT, CBT etc...) which is independent from the actuall Creator. For example Darknono was in at least two different teams and he has his own BATs without teams. In his case I'm working with 3 different main folders: NYBT\Darknono35, CBT\Darknono35 and Darknono35. But I could also mention MattB who has past with the BSC and other team (SYM Productions) and under his own name. Ill Tonkso is the same. So I would separate them in the active plugin folder. 

17 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

For naming conventions for the updated STEX files, at least the way the Nob's FTexture files are named kind of makes things confusing.

Yepp that's true. We didn't want to make a direct replace on the file (multiple concerns were occured even if NOB is not here anymore) and the same applied with the original updated version from SC China. That's why it got 3 versions. I'm thinking of making a brand which indicates the updated files clearly, of course in the ChagneLog there will be an explanation about the changes, which will cover the changed folder structure and its installation instructions. But at this point the Admins and  I were talking about uploading a secondary option on the changed files. Also it's a side note, that where I can reach the original creator and the files don't require any major update apart from the unified folder structure and the creator is opened for changes, I would ask the creator to upload the new version with the new folder structure (replacing the old one) or ask ones permission to allow me to do that avoiding the unecessary duplications. Where I can't reach the original creator or the files need to be updated (for example broken transit paths and fixing modding stuffs) a secondary upload will be taken place and explained in the ChangeLog anyway.

@markussaage

Yepp that's a rather personalized structure. My question is (not nitpicking, I'm just curious) how you handle the different type of contents with the same model. For example, you have a Xannepan parisian building which has a ploppable Co$$$, a ploppable Cs$$$, a growable Co$$$, a growable Cs$$$, a growable R$$$, a growable R$$ and a static landmark lot without jobs. Do you copy the different types into the different Main folders such as Residental or Commercial? 
I see your point I was thinkig about organizing my in game plugin folder according to types. It could be a huge help some times, but when I ran into the ONE DAT contains 4 different types than I have 4 different type lots with one model, I got confused where should I put the stuffs...  
As I know the game loads the Program files folders at first, than the root of the Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins, than alphabetically starts loading the folders etc... Honestly at this level what you showed, the player already knows and knows how important is, that one needs to keep ones plugin folder organized and tidy. I wouldn't go that deep in this project, because it's really up to the player, but this would be something what the player can start with.
There is a thing. While I'm building up these folder structures I try to keep in mind that there is a windows limitation which says that it can't read files if their access path is longer than 250-ish character. I ran into this issue with the SC4 Tool, where building prop desc files (prop examplar) with a long name were in a 3rd level deep subfolder and the SC4 Tool couldn't read the folder tree in the plugin folder with this file. Of course I managed to solve the issue, but this is something what may need to consider. That's why I try to limit the folders/subfolders only the TEAM/Creator/Content/ trio.

@Handyman
The *.exe installers shouldn't do any harm on your computer. I wasn't that carefull and they didn't cause any trouble to me. The only thing why I like them, is that someone already made and provided a folder structure with them. But they are less user friend in the matter of installation. So on the LEX and probably eventually here on STEX too, and maybe on SimCityKurier also I/we will extract the files from the installers to get the normal zip based form. But in many cases, see NAM or MGB's mods the EXE installers better than the manual way. They do the folder structure for you, and you shouldn't change that because that will mess up your plugins and games. The same problem applies actually a lot of "z___ folders". There isn't any unversal thoughts behind them in the most cases and than they can cause conflicts. I will pay a big attention to the STEX MOD section and ask more advanced players and modders to help me build up an unified system with explanations.

@jeffryfisher
Well it's important to separate the common plugins from the MODs. The load order is only important in the case of MODs or in the case of if something is suppos to overwrite an other thing. In general case totally whatever that Johnny's house is loading sooner or Stevie's bungalows (except if Johnny's house is an override for the bungalows). But yepp, stepping forward we still have the problem, that most of the cases mods say that you just copy the files into the plugin folder and the upload does not provide any folder structure, so the mod goes straight away into the root of the plugin folder and will load before the folders. Which is highly wrong. But I was talking about this one pharagraph above.

What I'm asking, that currently active custom content creators would be willing to follow a unified folder structure system (and/or update their already released stuffs regarding to this) or what's their oppinion about this.

[markussaage 762]

As @jeffryfisher mentioned, path length is critical even nowadays with modern OS. In case of a Windows API (with some exceptions) the maximum path length limitation is 260 characters.
A local path is structured in the following order: drive letter, colon, backslash, name components separated by backslashes, and a terminating null character. For example, the maximum path on drive D is "D:\some 256-character path string " where " " represents the invisible terminating null character for the current system codepage. (The characters " " are used here for visual clarity and cannot be part of a valid path string.)
Starting in Windows 10, version 1607, MAX_PATH limitations have been removed from common Win32 file and directory functions. However, you must opt-in to the new behavior.
So, that said, keep the paths as short as they can be to prevent further problems. All of this need to be considered in this ongoing project.

Kind regards!

[Tyberius06 12,184]

7 hours ago, markussaage said:

As @jeffryfisher mentioned, path length is critical even nowadays with modern OS. In case of a Windows API (with some exceptions) the maximum path length limitation is 260 characters.
A local path is structured in the following order: drive letter, colon, backslash, name components separated by backslashes, and a terminating null character. For example, the maximum path on drive D is "D:\some 256-character path string " where " " represents the invisible terminating null character for the current system codepage. (The characters " " are used here for visual clarity and cannot be part of a valid path string.)
Starting in Windows 10, version 1607, MAX_PATH limitations have been removed from common Win32 file and directory functions. However, you must opt-in to the new behavior.
So, that said, keep the paths as short as they can be to prevent further problems. All of this need to be considered in this ongoing project.

Kind regards!

Yepp, I mentioned this as well, it's somewhere in the wall of text

[markussaage 762]

7 hours ago, Tyberius06 said:

@markussaage

Yepp that's a rather personalized structure. My question is (not nitpicking, I'm just curious) how you handle the different type of contents with the same model. For example, you have a Xannepan parisian building which has a ploppable Co$$$, a ploppable Cs$$$, a growable Co$$$, a growable Cs$$$, a growable R$$$, a growable R$$ and a static landmark lot without jobs. Do you copy the different types into the different Main folders such as Residental or Commercial?

When I get a creator with different types of buidings, I usually devide the lot in commercials, residentials, industrials etc etc, and keep the common files like the SC4Model file in ONE place.
A .DAT file that contains all of it, I flip the coin wether I have the creators name already somewhere in my structure or not. At this time, I don't work much with the SC4Tool with the exception of Transit enabling a lot. 
My point is here, that folder structure is a personal matter. When I download new stuff, I never keep the original structure. My way of organizing the plugins reflects a way to be efficient and organized in the same way to meet an optimized loading order to support the engine of this old game. Was a long way to get here, and I am still learning. It never gets old.

BTW: the clarifying of the name length problem was just a coincidence. By the time I was done and hit the "Submit Reply", you did the same. But, there are no such coincidences.
Nothing happens without a reason.

Kind regards!

[jaredh 195]

17 hours ago, Jasoncw said:

I had no idea that when you dragged and dropped a folder into someplace with a folder of the same name that it automatically organized the subfolders. I would have assumed that it would just come up with a bunch of naming conflict windows. Is this something new with Windows 10? Or have I been completely oblivious to this my entire life?

 

Windows has done this going back to at least Win 95.  I am fairly certain it is a feature of X-Windows (which M$ copied to make Windows to begin with)

[Tyberius06 12,184]

1 hour ago, markussaage said:

My point is here, that folder structure is a personal matter. When I download new stuff, I never keep the original structure.

Quote from my readme what I use for the Heretic Project uploads. At least you know what to do, so when you get a file which is suppose to overwrite something, you know what to do. Most of the users at the begining, they will not.

Quote

Installation: Copy the "Heretic Projects" folder from the zip (or unzip it) into your plugin folder. If something wanted to be overwritten, you can accept it, that's OK. 
Highly recomended to keep the provided folder structure, because all of my uploads have the same format, and since sometimes I'm working with included dependencies (such as textures or descriptor datas) it's better if these "inclouded dependencies" are in the same place

We are NOT talking about the same thing. You're talking about the end user side (experienced end user) and personal organization, which is different what I wish to achive here. Most of the people won't bother to organize the stuffs, just drop everything into the plugin folder and let's play... and then they will be wondering what went wrong... The same when Custome Content creators leave the readme stuffs in the content folder which goes to the plugin folder and cause noticeable increased loading times... Ok, if one uses the DATpacker at least the unnecessary files will go away, but still you will have thousands of files in the Plugin Compressed menu. 
But with a basic structure you save some time to the user. And if one wants to go further that is up to the player.

So somewhere has to be started. And yepp, we also have the windows limit. There is a personal matter of the folder structure, but I'm talking about a very basic level. Which provides easy accessibility with less possible conflicts.

[markussaage 762]

53 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

Quote from my readme what I use for the Heretic Project uploads. At least you know what to do, so when you get a file which is suppose to overwrite something, you know what to do. Most of the users at the begining, they will not.

Very true point here. I had no clue back then either. Back in the days I just wanted to play and build a Megalopolis city with one million residents. Nowadays it's more of a realistic approach, it's not a game anymore, it became a hobby with many facettes.

Well, I get your approach here. Taking the newbies by the hand, and also show them some new facts so that they can get the best experience out of this game.

Kind regards!

[RRetail 7,906]

Some of these technical terms are beyond my means of understanding, but I like the organized approach. I kind of do this already with my uploads being in folders.

[Propfam 2,286]

Although I never been organized my plugin as tidy as possible, I don't like way plugins put .txt, .html, .jpg etc to the their main folder (e.g. Pegasus puts his "products" info to the same folder as the plugins). So, I use my custom Cleanitol files to clean up the Plugins folder from .txt, .html etc. I would like to organize exchanges starting with STEX and LEX but I need some works to my laptop hardware and software. In the end, the implementation of so-called "Modpacc" will be easier.

Thanks.

[Simmer2 23,784]

I can attest to the validity of @Tyberius06 folder structure. After chatting for a considerable time and adding a couple of changes, I now have re-structured 30 or so uploads so far with the help of Tibi because I'm away from my main PC (holidays).

I personally open zip files then drag and drop the main (SM2) file in to the plugin. Windows will create the folders and drop the content in to them. The next time you drag and drop another, windows will ask if you want to still move the content and because my files all have different names just click "yes", it will not overwrite anything. It will just add content to the existing folder tree.

For special mods where it requires the Z___"name of folder" format, I will use a slightly different method which I will show at the proper time.

The main folder structure format that I now have adopted (any one of those folders may be in my new structured folder tree) is as follow :

Simmer2

 

[Tyberius06 12,184]

Thanks @Simmer2, that's even more...  Ok, so I'm gonna use this with the rest of your stuffs, to help the process...
About "z____" folders, those are special cases, so those are out of this discussion. Whoever is working with "z____" folder  supposed to be aware of their affect on the other game elements.
But the approach what Simmer2 showed is really nice and well detailed. 

- Tyberius

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Still, @chfzdn's point about documents and screenshots being stored in the active plugins folder is valid IMO. IIRC, SimCity does parse these files upon startup before dismissing them as not game-relevant. I don't know if the time loss is considerable (=users can feel it) or negligible, though.

If it is negligible, the upside of this process would prevail: You'll find documentation on any given download right where the download is.

If the effect is not negligible, then it may be worth a thought to adopt an approach similar to the BSC team: Make a documentation folder outside your plugins folder to keep those files out of the game altogether. However, this would have the following two disadvantages:

• It would require to use ...\SimCity 4 and not ...\SimCity 4\Plugins as the root folder because you'd also have a ...\SimCity 4\Documentation folder (similar to the "LEX_Downloads" or "STEX_Downloads" folders used by BSC installers
• It would require users to know that there's a parallel structure, and find their download a second time, so to speak.

[rsc204 21,805]

The problem with such detritus in your plugins folder is that it leads to game instability if it's allowed to build up too much. I've experienced this effect first hand, where simply clearing it all out was sufficient to stop the CTDs.

As such, I think for sure these files should never be placed in the main Plugins folder. Ideally use of the existing LEX_ / STEX_ Downloads folders would be best. Since using the original structure of these, would prevent duplicate documentation everywhere. For most existing BSC installers however, this is how things have typically worked. But if a new folder is needed, that's not a huge deal.

[Tyberius06 12,184]

In my readmes and on the download pages I recommend that which folder the player needs to put into the plugin folder, or if the player places the Documentation folder into the plugin folder one should remove it from there.
I don't like either when the readmes and images are taking place in the plugin folder. Basicly when I download anything I move these files from next to the plugin files to outside that folder which I wish to place later into my plugin folder. And while I'm doing this I build up the above introduced folder structure in every case. I'm doing this thousands of files in my back-up folder, because sometimes the readme and images have a bigger size than the actual plugin so why waste my HDD storage capacity with unrelevant files in the plugin folder. I usually unzip everything into my back-up folders, than after I organized them, I know what files I want to place into the plugin folder and into which plugin folder. I have 7 different plugin folders for active cities with PLUGIN COMPRESSED (datpacked folders) and with PLUGINS WORK (general dependency collector place for prop and textures packs) main folders for each. I also have several PIM-x development folders and the uncompressed folders for each cities. All of them have been built up from the raw files from the Back-up folders (and only these back-up folders contain the readmes and images)

If one is using the DATpacker than it doesn't matter if the readme files are in the plugin folder, because the application will remove them anyway, and I think the cleanitol tool could make the same, but a lot of people don't know about these tools, or don't bother to learn to use them. 
I think the problem is that with thousands of files the install instruction says that you just place the files into the root of he plugin folder. And even the DATpacker can't handle that mess. In some cases (BLaM Team) there is a recommendation to create a specific folder and place the files there, but most of the cases players got not unified uploads from the same authors. Sometimes files are just sitting in the zip by themselves, sometimes they have a folder like " houses" (we are talking about the same author), sometimes there is a name and houses 2 etc... 
So if you are lazy or just don't care about these things eventually you will get a huge mess into the plugin folder and if something goes wrong probably you won't find the conflict ever...

1 hour ago, T Wrecks said:

If the effect is not negligible,

I met with different opinions. Some says that unnecessary files have a little effect on the game loading time, others says there isn't any affecton because the game simply can't see what it can't read. So I rather try to eliminate this problem and placing the readmes into Documentation folders therefore players know if they don't need they can remove them from one place,  not one-by-one from each plugin...

EDIT: Simmer2's way is a bit different, but at least all his readmes is going into the same place. So removing them is easy. In a lot of case when the readme files in the deep of a subfolder, the player needs to remove one-by-one all the readmes which is quite time consuming. 

  Edited August 22, 2018 by Tyberius06  
additional thoughts...

[Simmer2 23,784]

I forgot to mention that I usually remove the documents folder from the plugin and place it outside.

However if you are in the habit of dat packing, the issue remains moot.

Simmer2

[markussaage 762]

I remove all Readme! files as well and leave them in my ORIGINAL folder, where I keep all downloads, before they make it into the Plugins.
You can't get everything done for the regular folks out there, you just need to let them learn some things about this game. There's plenty of knowledge here
around, and what we could do is, put some advice in those Readme! files with instructions and what we recommend to do with those files.
There's no bulletproof way here to satisfy anybody... Just to remember: RtfM!!!

Kind regards!

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Yes, but will average Joe/Jane, for whose ease and comfort this system is being devised, know how to use DatPacker, and actually apply it?

One thing comes to mind when I think about the LEX_/STEX_Downloads folders, too: Their structure was sometimes far too deep for my liking, and required some knowledge which you might or might not have - for example when a download belonged to BSC\SimGoober\RLS Creations\Industrials\Pack XYZ\[ACTUAL ITEM]\

But of course, if I understood Tibi correctly he wouldn't create such a complicated structure.

[Jasoncw 11,840]

I'd like to toss out there that many uploads come with readmes but don't actually need readmes. I used to make readmes for all my uploads but almost all of them boiled down to "put this in your plugins folder" and so I stopped doing that and started putting installation instructions on the STEX page for the sake of the newbies.

[Tyberius06 12,184]

40 minutes ago, T Wrecks said:

But of course, if I understood Tibi correctly he wouldn't create such a complicated structure.

Nope, I wouldn't. I use the method which was described in the first post. In the case of Simmer2's recent updated uploads, we chose to break the files into a more detailed way, but that doesn't mean a much deeper folder structure. it still contains 2 level of folders: SM2 and the this contains all the other subfoldres. Only exceptions are the MMP subfolder which will contain the actual contents folder avioding the confusion.
In my case, there are two standard folders: Included Dependencies (for the upload specific elements such as building props or very specific textures) and Dependency Essential (for general props, timed props and their families and common custom textures).

46 minutes ago, Jasoncw said:

I used to make readmes for all my uploads but almost all of them boiled down to "put this in your plugins folder" and so I stopped doing that and started putting installation instructions on the STEX page for the sake of the newbies.

I wrote a long explanation why using only the download page is not sufficent enough in the most cases, but when I sent it, something went wrong and lost the whole post. Basicly (not in your case Jason) in a lot of times the download page lists a bunch of dependencies, but the actual content doesn't contain a readme. So the folks have to browse that content again, if they use that upload half or one year or more later. Which is not always as simple as it sounds. I bother to rename the zips for easy access, open and fil a text file with the dependency list and save at least one image which will remind me what that upload was. Lot of people don't do that.

But I'm talking about the future mostly. There is a handfull of still active custom content creator, and the whole topic is related with them and their work, and so the question from my first post:

On 2018. 08. 16. at 7:25 PM, Tyberius06 said:

So I'm asking your opinion about this kind of folder hierarchy organization, and as a custom content creator would you consider to use it in your uploads?

 

[matias93 7,535]

On 22-08-2018 at 10:10 AM, T Wrecks said:

If the effect is not negligible, then it may be worth a thought to adopt an approach similar to the BSC team:

It depends on both the amount and size of the extra files, and it is not negligible at all when they pile up.

What I've done is to only keep the flat text readmes inside the plugins folder, and only in the cases where they are needed to identify a file or if its installation requires some information besides 'drag and drop'.

In any case, by using the DL Catalogue and a  double folder system, most of the readme files are only parsed by the DATpacked, not the game itself.

On 22-08-2018 at 4:09 PM, Tyberius06 said:

as a custom content creator would you consider to use it in your uploads

sounds completely sensible

[T Wrecks 10,209]

On 16.8.2018 at 8:25 PM, Tyberius06 said:

So I'm asking your opinion about this kind of folder hierarchy organization, and as a custom content creator would you consider to use it in your uploads?

I guess I'll continue the IRM as before, considering that it can become complex, especially if you want to toggle between regular and W2W anchors.

However, for upcoming individual uploads, I don't see a problem. All it would add is one folder level. (I'm a few dozen IRM uploads away from my next individual upload, tho... )

[Tyberius06 12,184]

1 hour ago, T Wrecks said:

I guess I'll continue the IRM as before, 

Oh yepp, of course. complex sets which already have a "by default" folder structure I wouldn't change either. The IRM one of them. For example I didn't put the IRM in a folder with your name, neither the tree replacement mod. But I editied for myself your other more re-lot related stuffs. But when I released Jason5871's and RebaLynn's Cruise Ship Port set (as legacy after the end of SimPEG), I used the Cruise Ship Port as main folder, and gave the instruction the users to copy/place that folder into the plugin folder.

Anyway, thanks!

- Tyberius