On 06.05.11 19:08, Erich wrote:
> Preface:  I do desktop setups (among other things) and am not a POV-Ray user.

OK, then first note that POV-Ray does not need to be installed by an 
administrator. It is perfectly happy if installed with just user privileges.

> When I install POV-Ray v3.7rc3 as an administrator and select the option to
> install it into c:\Program Files, it creates files in my install-user's "My
> Documents".  If I move/delete that "POV-Ray" folder inside of "My Documents" and
> then start POV-Ray, it gives me an error about not finding "Colors.inc".

Of course, users do need access to those files for most sample scenes 
includes with POV-Ray.

> The problem is that I need to install this so that users other than myself (who
> may or may not be admins or have logged in yet) can use POV-Ray.  Ideally, when
> POV-Ray is run for the first time, it would check if these files exist in
> the default location inside the current user's profile (wherever that might be)
> and create them there if needed.  Everybody could be happy then.

Isn't this a function available via Windows admin tools? If you have a 
concrete idea how this should work, I think it would be interesting if you 
could contribute such an extension to the POV-Ray installer.

> It also doesn't appear that I can simply copy this folder to the default user's
> profile (so that it is picked up for new users at least) because some of the
> files have the install-user's profile path coded in (particularly povray.ini and
> pvengine.ini).  Can I use system variables (like %userprofile%) in these files?

I do not think that you can use environment variables in regular POV-Ray INI 
files. As far as I know the Windows implementation of fopen will not 
automatically consider them. There certainly is no Windows-specific code in 
POV-Ray to resolve any environment variables in the INI files.

> I don't really want to do it this way though because copying the nearly 2000(!)
> files and folders really slows down first logins for everyone (when only a small
> percentage will be using POV-Ray).

I would suggest to then have a batch file that users select when they first 
run POV-Ray. This batch file can then add a proper link to pvengine.exe in 
the Windows menu, the desktop and where ever you want it, plus copy the files.

> [An aside: Do users really need to edit 1800+ files?  Couldn't there be default
> settings in a folder under "Program Files\POV-Ray" that are overridden if the
> user chooses to create any specific file/setting in their "POV-Ray profile"?
> That would keep the number of user-side files small, allow administrators to
> define the defaults they want, and still allow customization by knowledgeable
> users.]

Yes, users do need those files, and they do need write access to them. These 
files are not files needed by POV-Ray itself. They are files users can add 
to the scene files they create in any way they like.

> I'm willing to use another option (though also not ideal) and put the folder
> into the "Public Documents" folder so that all users could function, but I don't
> know how to get POV-Ray to recognize that location.  The error for "Colors.inc"
> not being found indicates that I can point to alternate locations, but I can't
> find any (working) information on how to do that.

The default library path folder are kept in povray.ini .

	Thorsten

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