WED-800

Ability to read links for library

Closed

New Feature

Reported by:
 MadMat on February 8, 2017 5:58 AM

Assigned to:
 Michael Minnhaar

Hi, Because at the moment I have both XP10 and XP11 I tried to save some disk space, putting libraries (many) to another drive, and I added a link in both xp10 & 11 custom scenery folder.
What I noticed is that WED is unable to read the libraries if the folder is not physically present in the custom scenery folder.
It could be nice to have the ability of reading libraries from another folder, different from custom scenery folder.
Thanks.

  • Michael Minnhaar February 8, 2017 10:21 PM

    This should work already, just checked under Linux and Win7: I dont rememeber any intentional checks or distinctions between real directories and links w.r.t. the folders inside the "Custom Scenery" folder.

    I have two installations Z:/XP10 and Z:/XP11. Then I go into "Z:/XP11/Custom Scenery" and create a symbolic link to "../../XP10/Custom Scenery/Untitled 3" and I can access and edit the "Untitled 3" scenery regardless to which X-Plane installation I point WED's XSystem setting.

    What is definitely not intended and not supported is to select sceneries outside the "Custom Scenery" folder. Also, some validation checks test quite specifically that resources and libraries only point to objects/textures etc within their specific subdirectories, so there may be some restrictions that go beyond the intended consistency checks. If there is a problem with that, I would need a more specific example what you intend to do.

  • MadMat February 9, 2017 6:46 AM


    Yes, it works with symbolyc link (that in Windows 10 it is not a straightforward functionality), not with simple "links". Problem solved.

  • Michael Minnhaar February 10, 2017 12:16 AM

    Yes, those .lnk files in windows are just files with some ever changing encoding scheme to tell you where else to look for the real stuff instead. Requires a lot of extra coding and changes frequently between os versions.
    Symbolic links are handled at the OS level, that's how all other contemporary OS do it and it requires no application support. Thus they work with XP, WED and pretty much every other program.