By ted devlin (Eblue) (12.149.3.2) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 11:45 am:

i have already sent this in as a bug report. feel free to test it and send your bug report to : tech@newtek.com

Motion designer was crapping out on me, i couldn't create a PFX object (wind specifically), the error message reported Erros loading LScript Interfaces. LScript itself appeared to only be working in fits and starts. My plug-ins were loaded fine, my prefs were a-ok, and my content dir was ok as well.

the problem was that I renamed my "Lightwave 3D 7.5" directory to: "LightWave".

the LScript Interfaces appear to be Hard Coded to look in the "Lightwave 3D 7.5" directory. Renaming this directory will lay waste to many many features in LW that rely on LScript interfaces. I have looked closely at all the LW files inside my Preferences directory, and glossed over the slim documentation for any way to point LScript to these files, with no luck.

I am inscensed at this issue. "Lightwave 3D 7.5" is a terrible name for any directory on any platform and could cause problems with cross platform networks (it does with mine) and yet without need LW doesn't work without this name by default!!!
LW does not need to know the path of its application directory, ever, period. the LW bundle can provide that with minimal fuss, without this nasty mess (took me, a novice programmer, a 1/2 an hour to research and implement).

this isn't a macs r better than pcs thread,
its not a carbon vs cocoa thread,
its not a Newtek don't pay attention to us thread,
its a: every user deserves high quality (at least medium quality) product-thread.

i have just become frustrated with a design flaw, one of many, in LW. I personally don't expect NT to jump on every problem i experience, but I have no qualms pointing out mistakes/flaws/bugs and discussing them at length.

LW depends on a terribly fragile and poorly implemented system to keep track of its support files. It probably took forever to design and imlement, and now possibly drags down development vs. the gains involved with embracing a standards based approach to loading/finding Preferences and support files. More importantly, the current system is flakey and undermines the User's experience with LW, forcing he/she to troubleshoot something that should work without configuration or fragility. I know i sound like an interface Nazi, but this is rudimentary, and unforgivable in this day and age.

By Chris W. (Chriswork) (24.123.214.36) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 01:21 pm:

You can change the name of the direcotry to whatever you like, you just need to re-scan all of your plug-ins and Lscripts after you do it.

I've renamed my Lighwave directory a few times (as well as moved it around) and it's a pain updating all the preferences, but it does work.

I agree that Newtek should have a section in the manuals that describes how many preferences files there are, and what they do.

By Beam Tracer (Beamtracer) (203.109.241.109) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 03:12 pm:

I agree with Ted. The implementation is sloppy to say the least.

I'll add one other point.... Naming the directory "Lightwave 3D 7.5" can cause other problems. Having spaces in file or directory names is a big no-no. With OS X we're operating in a UNIX environment. OK, Apple's GUI will happily read names that contain spaces. However, if you delve into the UNIX command line you will run into trouble if spaces are used, as they may not be recognized.

By ted devlin (Eblue) (12.149.3.2) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 03:56 pm:

beam
use quotes
ex: cd "hard drive:Applications:Lightwave 3D 7.5"
usually works, but it is a pain and I might add the period is not just a bad character, it is reserved for files only, and is Illegal in directory names. could cause additional problems... espescially if some developer comes up with a ".5" file format.

just found another workaround:
cd /Applications/Lightwave\ 3D\ 7.5
works fine, but boy is that nasty

chris W:
ummmm no. like i said b4, LScript was sort of working, But things like the LScript interface for Motion designer were broken. Different animal altogether. This is what is sloppy about LW's support file setup : (and its not documented, so all i have to go on is my research) the Interfaces for MD are in a LScript directory in your main LW directory. the programmers got lazy when referring to this directory, or worse they made yet another pref file, and put it in the wrong place and didn't document it. Now, when i changed the name of my LW directory, I did update my Plug-ins, and such. Plug-ins and a good portion of LScript worked fine, but MD didn't work and, I suspect, many other tools that on the face don't appear to be LScript didn't work either. its another insideous and hard to troubleshoot issue with LW, so of course your mileage may vary.

i understand you are trying to be helpful, and i realize you are willing to work a little harder than necessary in order to have the kind of output LW is known for (honestly, so am i), but my argument is that the preference/support file system is so archaic, that it helps nobody to maintain it.
I literally learned everything needed to create a seamless, invisible, and reliable system of support file management and implemented it in half an hour. And if i needed to find these necessary files, I could do it without ever opening a preference file (Bundle services for those of you developmentally inclined). So while i do appreciate the help, the point is... the need to update pref files is ancient, anti-intuitive, fragile, and should die a quick and painless death. both the users and Newtek will be much happier.

By Arnie Cachelin (Arnie) (68.164.89.62) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 05:26 pm:

I think the '.' is a perfectly fine character to put in a directory name, and I am not alone, as I see in my Applications folder "After Effects 5.5",
"Transmit 2.0", "Stuffit Standard 7.0", "Mathematica 4.2".
I agree that the LScript shortcuts which contain hardwired install directories are pitifully lame, but really they are stupid little UI clutter that save like 3-5 clicks on relatively rare operations. I usually kill them from my config right away. They were added to make new features more obvious. Users who change their installs manually are always asking for trouble, and while apps should be robust enough for this (and LW is), the cheesy little scripts yuou refer to are obviously not.

By ted devlin (Eblue) (68.46.132.42) on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 - 10:33 pm:

arnie, are you actually calling Motion designer cheezy?

ok, i guess if you say so

i do make a habit out of Cleaning up after those other offenders, and you know what? None of them fail to work after i change the name of the directory they are in.

but i think you missed my point. Lightwave is Not robust in this way. re-loading plug-ins? scripts that Hard-Code directory paths? setting content directories?
The amount of Hidden gotchas involved with say... moving the application are rediculous, the Term "house of cards" is applicable. I mean, cmon you say it yourself... "I agree that the LScript shortcuts which contain hardwired install directories are pitifully lame". And your claim that these scripts are not part Of LW? Rubbish. Preloaded on a standard intsall, it Is Part of LW. It is the public face you (newtek) has chosen to put on your 3d app.

I've seen bad, and I am NOT comparing LW to bad, LW is great. But, there are many places in the App that its age is showing. The fact that the lame scripts do things The Wrong way, to save 3-5 clicks is evidence of things going horribly wrong behind the scenes. There are Right ways to do these things that don't require 3-5 clicks. And its not a matter of pc- vs mac, its a matter of doing it right. The scripts are suffering due to poor design at a more basic level, not just because they are "lame".

Don't worry you guys are in gooood company. i am as hard on AfterEffects as i am LW (can we say font issues in AE? perhaps poor 3d implementation?). LW is a product i like and want to see get Better (so is AE). Now enjoy this hypothetical design session.

By Greg Reyna (Greg_Reyna) (68.164.61.2) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 02:07 am:

I'm running LW 7.5 on Jaguar 10.2.3. When I quit LW the system puts up a notice that "LW has unexpectedly quit", which is what the system does when a program crashes. Is there some information that LW (Layout, specifically), is not giving the OS when it quits?

Greg

By ted devlin (Eblue) (12.149.3.2) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 09:57 am:

actually its proabably a corrupt pref file... delete them all and start over with a fresh set of config files.

leads to another point i wanted to make about LW. zapping anything from the config files, is useless. LW has a nasty habit of wrecking pref files. So unless you want to keep track of dozens of backup files, zapping things from your config just doesn't pay.

By Arnie Cachelin (Arnie) (65.164.224.3) on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 - 01:18 pm:

Motion designer is not a script, and thus not cheesy. The shortcut to launch it is.