DeleD Community Edition

[chronozphere]

Hey guys

Would it be possible to organize the units in directories. All those many files in /trunk/units make me dizzy. I'm used to smaller projects (like 20 or 30 files, not 200 )

I was thinking about the following:

--> /Tools/: Most of the units implement some kind of tool. We could make a tools directory (with subdirectories) to organize the tools (vertex tools, primitive tools, skeleton tools, etc etc )
--> /Materials/: All material and texture related code
--> /Animation/: All animation related stuff here
--> /Raytracer/: Allready exists

My main concern is having the tool implementations separated from the rest. It's way easier to find your unit when there is a decent directory structure.

Also, we should add a list of units (the important ones) on the wiki and add a little description for each one of them.

Let me know what you think?

[Paul-Jan]

As long as we don't end up with < +/- 3 files per folder, I totally agree.

You will be needing a Misc (or whatever you want to call it) folder though, unless you are an absolute wizard at classification.

[Jeroen]

Yep, I agree too. Be aware though, this would be a rather big, project-wide change. Some coordination (as to when/how/etc) would be needed.
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[Paul-Jan]

Why? It just affects the structure and deled.dpr, nothing more. Go ahead and do it, I say. Then commit. If we hate your guts for it we'll simply revert.

Just make sure to move the files using svn (rightclick-drag-and-drop if you are using TortoiseSVN), not the explorer / command line. There isn't much history to keep at the moment, but still. Have to do this the right way.

[Jeroen]

[chronozphere]

[Paul-Jan]

No offense, but if you don't know exactly how Delphi looks for files in subfolders(*), I'm starting to feel a little less confident about my "just do it" suggestion. Like Jeroen says, stuff like this is an immediate build-breaker if not done right.

There are two ways to address this in a less drastic way:
a) you rearrange the files locally and post your suggested structure here in this thread, and then we all discuss things together
b) We change this forum post into a formal tracker issue, where any developer can discuss it and try to pick it up.

Something like that?

----------------------

For the record,

-> The way Delphi handles files in folders(*),

There are 3 search-levels here:
(1) Through direct reference in the .dpr
(2) Through the project search paths
(3) Through the environment (Delphi-wide) library paths.

Units can also find each other "if located in the same folder", but that is a maintenance nightmare I won't go into.

Of these three levels, DeleD uses only (1), to maintain maximum portability from one machine to the next. The file references all use relative folders, of course.

-> Moving files through TortoiseSVN is fully explained in the manual, here. Make sure you practice a bit with this functionality before doing it on a live project! It's really simple once you get the hang of it.

[chronozphere]

[Paul-Jan]

Sweet, looking forward to what you come up with!

[chronozphere]

Organizing all the files is really tedious and boring. But i'm not going to give up that easily, because I just know everyone will benefit.

It'll probably take more than a week to re-structure everything (Keep in mind that i'm busy with other things aswell )

[Paul-Jan]

Hang in there! Keep in mind that if it had been Loads Of Fun (And Really Simple) to restructure the file tree it would probably have been done ages ago.

[chronozphere]

Ok, I propose the following:

[Paul-Jan]

First of all, excellent work.

- I like your basic structure, but I'm waiting for the responses by others. Mainly JC.
- I do think you might have overdetailed a bit here and there, for instance I don't see Base/Lights containing more than a single file (unit_lights). A folder containing a single file is overdoing it (i.e. makes it harder to navigate, not easier). Then again, one could argue that unit_lights should be split up, and consistency is good.
- I just deleted the tree obsolete files from the repository. Good job spotting them, now you don't have to worry about them any longer.
- It is really important that you move these files through the versioning system (i.e. shift-move in tortoisesvn) to keep their history. Even though we don't have much history, this has to be done right on principle. Because of this, I'd very much prefer to this trough a patch (I am assuming the patch format properly supports) so the moves can be verified by a second pair of eyes before they end up into the repository. Shouldn't matter too much for your workflow, just do your thing, then generate a patch and submit it to sourceforge in stead of doing the commit.

[chronozphere]

Good... I'll take another close look at it. You are right about the lights. On the other hand, the directory will not contain a single file. It will also contain the tree "light builder" units.

I'm not too sure about the Bone tools though.. There's only a single file (BoneremoverTool AFAIK). I think I better put this one in "Tools/". On the other hand, It will then be the only file there (the rest are sub-dirs).

[Jeroen]

I like the structure as well. I don't mind having only 1 file in a directory if the file logically needs to be separated from the rest.

I do have questions about the UI directory. The user-interface of DeleD consists of forms, frames and a number of additional units. Further detailing of that directory might be a good idea.
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