Global variable for Preferences Folder?

bentraje

Hi,

Is there a global variable for preferences folder where it automatically retrieves the path of the preferences?

Currently, I have it hard coded like in the following, but it would be nice a fail-safe of doing it (i.e. global variable).

def open_folder(path=r'C:\Users\Luke\AppData\Roaming\MAXON\Maxon Cinema 4D R21_64C2B3BD\plugins'): 
    webbrowser.open('file:///' + path)

bentraje

Lol. Ignore this. Just when I was writing this, stumbled upon the documentation that solves my problem.

Here is the method.
c4d.storage.GeGetStartupWritePath()

C4DS

@bentraje
Since you're looking for the plugins folder it might be advised to use GeGetPluginPath instead?

bentraje

@C4DS said in Global variable for Preferences Folder?:

GeGetPluginPath

Unfortunately, it returns me the following path C:\\Program Files\\Maxon Cinema 4D R21\\corelibs'.
No worries, I just did the os.path.join(path, "plugins") and it works as expected.

C4DS

@bentraje said in Global variable for Preferences Folder?:

Unfortunately, it returns me the following path C:\\Program Files\\Maxon Cinema 4D R21\\corelibs'.

I am using the GeGetPluginPath alot in my C++ plugins, but the Python SDK documentation mentions:

Warning

The Python implementation is different from the C++. In the Python SDK, this function returns the path of the Python SDK module. To get the path of your Python plugin use __file__.

Also note that from R21 (or was it R20) the user can define his/her own path(s) for plugins.
In that case you'll end up with a possibly non-existing path if you simply concatenate "plugins" to the startup-write path.

bentraje

Ah gotcha. Thanks for the heads up!

ferdinand

Hi @bentraje, hi @C4DS,

you seem to have solved your problem yourself, so there is not much for me to add here apart from offering alternative solutions. One slightly dodgy way to get the preferences path is to use the path which is stored under c4d.PREF_MEMORY_PVHARDFOLDER in the world container of Cinema (it is the Memory>Cache Path attribute).

A more elegant way is to use maxon.Application.GetUrl() which does properly handle the different paths under which the preferences can be stored (see example at the end of my posting for details).

Cheers,
Ferdinand

"""On how to iterate over the different  preferences paths with the maxon API.
"""

import maxon

def main():
    """Entry point.
    """
    for urlType in (maxon.APPLICATION_URLTYPE.GLOBALPREFS_DIR,
                    maxon.APPLICATION_URLTYPE.PREFS_DIR,
                    maxon.APPLICATION_URLTYPE.PREFS_DIR_STATIC):
        print (f"{urlType}:{maxon.Application.GetUrl(urlType)}")
    
if __name__=='__main__':
    main()