Patrick Elliott wrote:
> In article <47c08fb8$1@news.povray.org>, jho### [at] northrimnet says...
>> In the latest Beta 3.7.beta25 change log, it mentions the pvengine.ini 
>> file is now integrated into the Windows registry. I'm curious as to why 
>> this was done? The editor I can understand due to it's tight integration 
>> with the Windows GUI manager. But why the pvengine.ini? Thx.
>>
> Gah.. Good question. Most people in *any* sort of open source and/or 
> user modifiable code are moving away from that. There is even discussion 
> on the client I use for muds on when/if/how it should move its setting 
> out of there. The registry creates more problems than it solves usually, 
> and in the case of the client I mentioned, there is some bizarre bug 
> which causes the client to forget what the window sizes are, if you have 
> more than one open at a time. And that is not even mentioning stuff like 
> being able to export settings and import them to a different machine, 
> use programs across multiple machines, off of flash drives, and so on, 
> especially if you have restrictions on certain types of software 
> installs, and so on. It is, quite simply, a major pain in the ass that I 
> wish MS hadn't come up with, and completely absurd as a solution to much 
> of anything (especially now that XP and Vista "both" use user specific 
> folders for documents now, which means those kinds of settings could be 
> stored just like on *nix systems). In other words, the stupid reason 
> they came up with it in the first place, isn't necessary any more.
> 
I agree with your most of your points. I've always been an advocate of 
keeping as much out of the registry as possible. Contrary to popular 
belief, many programs do not remove their registry entries completely, 
leading to bloated registries and other problems. I've done a lot of 
"registry surgery" over the years...
Another aspect is integration with other programs, such as modelers. I 
would think it more convenient to read the pvengine.ini file and parse 
it than to root around in the registry checking keys...
I'd much rather see it retain it's old form, easy to edit and modify.

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