editing of config files

[Marcuz]

here is a request that the more i use winuae the more is pressing...
and that i fear is very difficult to implement properly

the pile of my config files is getting taller everyday and it looms over me since months; but in the developping of winuae new features turn out that could be nice to add to old games you've built a config already, the disk drive sound for instance.
or else you buy a new video card for your pc that allows you to make custom resolutions for winuae.
or, even worse, you want to move your stash of adf in another dir, or rename its dir according the new tosec dats.

the problem is that you have currently maybe 500 config files!

is there a way to display them as entry in a excel-like database, do some mass change or selective change?

there was a kind of front-end config management util around, AmigaConfigs, but it didn't allowed anything really useful (my personal evaluation) or like this i ask for.


there is also a mayor advantage in this: given a tosec dat, and so a certain name for adfs, people could share configurations by the dozen and make just some adjustement to fixed parameters for the computer they are going to usem with.

toni can you think about it?

[Chuckles]

I've often found myself wishing I had something like what you're asking for, since I have something like 1,500 config files myself, and have often wanted to apply a change to some or all of them without having to edit each one manually. I've managed to do that in some cases using search and replace tools that can operate on a large number of files, but they can't do everything.

I have somewhat of an idea of how something that would make the process easier could work, though I personally think that it might make more sense for it to be a separate tool, rather than something that is part of WinUAE. Since what you're really doing by changing configs is simply making changes to a text file, it seems to me that a more advanced search and replace tool than any of the ones I've seen out there could be created, and if it were made flexible enough to handle the kinds of changes that you'd want to do to your config files, it could also kick some serious butt when it comes to making fairly complicated changes to other types of text files.

If nobody comes up with a better solution, I think I'd like to put some more thought into the details of how something like this might work, and once I feel like I have something worth discussing, maybe we could talk about it here and with a little bit of luck convince somebody to do the coding. Any thoughts?

[Marcuz]

a thing that comes to mind is that it should be able to break the lines that store info on file adresses so that one could change a master directory leaving intact subdirectory structure

[Chuckles]

Would breaking the lines apart really make it any easier to change than it is now if you're using a global search and replace tool? Can't you do the same thing now if you use that tool to do something like:

In all filenames matching *.uae

Replace "C:\Emulators\WinUAE\Diskettes\" with "D:\WinUAE\Games\"

That would change a pathname like:

"C:\Emulators\WinUAE\Diskettes\Lemmings\Lemmings_D1.adf"

to:

"D:\WinUAE\Games\Lemmings\Lemmings_D1.adf"

Wouldn't that do exactly what you're talking about? The subdirectory structure would remain intact beyond the portion of the search and replace values that you entered.

[Marcuz]

of course you are right, but i had in mind a neet data sheet with all your config files displayed... just for megalomaniac satisfaction.
then think at where you eventually have stored tosec stuff: more then a dozen subdir with a dat number on the name (es: Commodore Amiga - Games - ADF [A - 0] (TOSEC_v2004-03-21_RC)); when you update dats you'll have to do a lot of search and replace... well not really a lot, but enough to not enjoy it...