Why exactly does the config file have to be platform specific?
It doesn't have to be, it just better that way. Then users who know
their platform have to learn less new things to work with Pd.
But users who already know pd from another platform will have to learn a new way to handle its configuration :(
How many users know how to edit this proposed config file? Just about how many know how to edit the registry settings for Pd. The FAQ can provide some help for getting people up to speed. We need to build on existing knowledge so that people don't have learn Pd- specific things for trivial operations. For what Pd does with it, the registry is simple to use. Plus if you learn the registry in the process of figuring out manual Pd configs, then you can apply that knowledge to just about every other Windows program.
I don't know _any_ windows program that encourages users to play
around with its registry entries. That usually results in odd
behaviour. MS wants the program to read and write the registry
through the API, the user isn't supposed to even suspect that it
might exist. The main reason for it seems to be for licensing and
copy-protection secret keys. My registry seems to have thousands of
entries. Browsing it is very tedious. I propose that an xml file could be read/writeable by pd in the
same way the setting dialogs work currently. Since it's a plain
text file and out in the open, anyone could read it, and "experts"
could edit it directly. As long as the 'xml' is kept simple (no nesting, no dtd lookups) a
parser should be doable in tcl, maybe a tcl xml parser already
exists(?)We are on the same page, we just disagree about how to solve the
problem. If the preference panels were fixed, then Windows users
wouldn't have to touch the registry, and people on other platforms
would benefit too. Just changing the underlying format will mean
that users have to learn a different, arcane config file. That
doesn't seem like a benefit to me.
The point is it shouldn't be arcane. It's just an ASCII text file with easy-to-understand tags. It could even include a full set of usage instructions as comments. To me the command line is arcane and the registry even more so.
Martin