nabla
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 122
Registered: 04-19-2006
IP: Logged

I recently got into playing DROD again, and was wondering how I would go about playing on different computers without going through some tedious export/import routine.

I tried to read up on the issue, and the best solution I could find was playing DROD from a flash drive, but when I copied the install directory, my player/save data seemed to be missing.

There's this readme telling me that my player data files are by default in /ProgramData/Caravel/drod-4_0, but there's no instructions on how to change that default location.

What would I have to do to put it all in one portable place?

nabla
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 122
Registered: 04-19-2006
IP: Logged

This is just like a DROD room – the minute after posting the solution will come to you. I just merged the data folder with the install folder on a flash drive, and it works great. Maybe this will help somebody else wondering the same thing.

west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 608
Registered: 03-09-2011
IP: Logged

I was wondering the same thing actually so I appreciate you posting your solution. What do you mean by merge? Put in the same folder?

____________________________
-Logan

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5528
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

That solution is missing one important step:
Create (or edit, if it exists) DataPath.txt, which should be in the same directory as drod.exe, with the following contents:

.\Data;.\Data;

This tells drod where to look for the data. If it doesn't exist, it will default to the ProgramData dir on Windows.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

nabla
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 122
Registered: 04-19-2006
IP: Logged

Yes, put everything in Prgramdata/Caravel/drod-4_0 into your data folder. By "merge" I just mean that the subfolders aren't supposed to overwrite the existing ones, but to add their files.

nabla
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 122
Registered: 04-19-2006
IP: Logged

Schik wrote:
That solution is missing one important step:
Create (or edit, if it exists) DataPath.txt, which should be in the same directory as drod.exe, with the following contents:

.\Data;.\Data;

This tells drod where to look for the data. If it doesn't exist, it will default to the ProgramData dir on Windows.

Strange, I don't have that file, and it still works. Is it possible that drod first looks for stuff in the install dir, and only then in the data dir, defaulting to the ProgramData dir?

I noticed that without the DataPath.txt, drod will autocreate the ProgramData dir (without any actual contents). I just tried your suggestion with the DataPath.txt, so drod will actually be contained on the flash drive, and not create folders on another drive, but it still does that. Am I doing something wrong?

nabla
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 122
Registered: 04-19-2006
IP: Logged

Could someone please confirm that the way it's working for me (the data being fetched from the merged install folder, even without a DataPath.txt file present, and the folder /Programdata/Caravel/drod-4_0 being autocreated on drod start, even with DataPath.txt as described by Schik present) is expected behaviour? A folder being created on another drive isn't ideal, and I just want to make sure that I did the thing with the data path file right.

Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1603
Registered: 02-22-2003
IP: Logged

I can confirm that I have a customised DataPath.txt file (separate directories, but both on D:), and that C:\ProgramData\Caravel\drod-4_0 and its empty subdirectories still get autocreated by DROD 4.0.2.112. I suspect it's a bug rather than intended behaviour, but it's repeatable.

Edit: Bug report. :)

---

[Last edited by Tuttle at 05-04-2013 12:17 PM]

west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 608
Registered: 03-09-2011
IP: Logged

Dear people from the future, here is what I figured out:

Or at least this is what I did.

1. I installed DROD onto my flash drive.
2. I copied the files from my computer's installation ProgramData folder. This was found in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Caravel\Data on XP I believe.
3. I placed the copied files inside the Data folder in my thumb drive's installation. I don't think anything was overwritten except things like the bitmap folders, which had nothing in them anyway.
4. I did nothing else, no DataPath file necessary. This thumb drive works on the PC with my regular DROD installation as well as a PC with no DROD installation so apparently DROD looks at the current data folder before looking at the one in the ProgramData folder.

Hope this helps someone.

____________________________
-Logan

nabla
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 122
Registered: 04-19-2006
IP: Logged

Thanks for the confirmations, Tuttle and west.logan. The DataPath.txt not being necessary is okay with me, and I actually don't care very much about the unnecessary footprint either, since it's only my own machines I'm running drod on, but I guess it's not very hard to fix this, and it might be nice to be able to have a truly portable no-footprint drod installation on a flash drive.

Anyway, it's great that this works at all, since for games it's not all too common, I think, to be able to seamlessly move between computers without some cloud solution. I admit that I had to start pretty much all of the official holds all over again a few times because I apparently couldn't be bothered to figure out how to correctly move my installation to a new machine.

Maybe it would help to have a separate "portable" option on game installation, so this would be something that just works and doesn't have to be figured out? On the other hand, maybe all the drod players out there read the forums anyway and know how to this.

Something I'd find really nice would be incorporating player and save files into the caravelnet cloud (for lack of a better word). New computer? Just log in, download the game, all progress is there. I guess there would be lots of problems with synchronization when playing offline, or when playing simultaneously on different machines on the same account, though (if that's even possible).

Any opinions on this from the devs?