#382 A reasonable selection of working directories

[Pete]

Hi.

This is something that has been bothering me for a long time: AoI understands only one "Current Directory". This leads to confusiong situations. For example when I edit a tool script and save it and then render a picture, AoI suggests to save the picture into Scripts/Tools.

I'd suggest that there'd be more default directories and current directories. At the minimum a default working directory, where AoI suggest to save scene files and a depaylt output directory where AoI suggests to save rendered imges or movies. There should be selectable in user preferences.

Also AoI should for example remember the last directory where an image was saved. This information should stay in the memory during a session and preferably it should be saved into th escene file. If the saved directory address can't be found the next time a file is opened, then the default should be suggested instead.

Per project (= scene file) there could also be defined input directories for external objects and external images and possibly even project specific scripts.

The implementation could be automatic so, that AoI just remembers the last driectories that have been used with a particular scene or there could be a choice in the Scene menu for setting project default directories.

[Pete]

Damn again ... I don't have the rights to edit the original request text. -- Nothing major, but just tose annoying typos.

[Peter Eastman]

This sounds like a really good idea.

[Luke S]

Yes, parts of this have been on my mind since back when I added file filter support to some of the dialogs. Even having separate 'working' directories linked for each of the main file operations would make a huge difference.

Which should get priority?

• smart remembering the last location(s) you used?
• User sttings for application?
• User settings per file?

I think that remembering where you tend to open/save is probably going to be the least friction from a casual user's standpoint, but gives the user less control

[Pete]

I'd think:

• smart remembering the last location(s) during session
• these saved per file
• hard coded defaults, for new files (naturally)
• user settings for app defaults

The idea of selectable default settings per file is probably more or less made obsolete by the file remembering the last used locations.

I don't really have a very clear picture how it even should work but, I think, some additional settings to adjust it's behavior would have to be available like off, suggest for the first per session, suggest always. -- And then the file should remember both, the per file defaults and the last used locations.

Though, I believe that could sometimes be useful in large, heavy projects with a lot of output traffic and possibly multiple people working on the same files. So a kind of a project management feature if somebody ever builds a project management for AoI. :)

To me this file location idea would seem to have somethign loosely in common with https://sourceforge.net/p/aoi/bugs/496/ too.