How to define Lemmix styles

[EricLang]

I'm working on a more advanced version of Lemmix (editor and after that the player).
I was asking myself what you guys think of the LemmixStyles ini (apart from the horror setting it up).
All that definitions of graphicsets could just be deleted. What about skipping all that and stripping the ini file to just definitions of styles?

Like this and no more:
[style_0]
StyleClass=TDosOrigStyle
CommonPath=D:\Lemmings\Orig\
StyleDescription=Dos Original Lemmings
StyleName=DosOrig
[style_1]
etc.

Of all the old styles the needed files are known, so I could autodetect this all.
Can you see any disadvantages of this idea?

[Dullstar]

I'm working on a more advanced version of Lemmix (editor and after that the player).
I was asking myself what you guys think of the LemmixStyles ini (apart from the horror setting it up).
All that definitions of graphicsets could just be deleted. What about skipping all that and stripping the ini file to just definitions of styles?

Like this and no more:
[style_0]
StyleClass=TDosOrigStyle
CommonPath=D:\Lemmings\Orig\
StyleDescription=Dos Original Lemmings
StyleName=DosOrig
[style_1]
etc.

Of all the old styles the needed files are known, so I could autodetect this all.
Can you see any disadvantages of this idea?

There's a chance this would dissallow additional tilesets,   However, anyone who releases one should really be kind enough to release the changes to LemmixStyles.ini to put in, so just leave it the way it is.  It's a little annoying to set up, but it's not difficult or anything.

[Simon]

I like it when a program's content can be extended easily.

What do you think of a fundamentally different approach that doesn't use a central file at all? Each style could have its own main file that contains name, path info etc. Each style class is then just a list of the styles' filenames. The program itself performs a search for style classes and standalone styles in one of its subdirectories. This might be done whenever it is run; searching a single directory of such size is fast.

This would eliminate the wuss of maintaining a central file (I took a long time getting it to work). The cost is that styles need an extra file each, or at least each style class needs a file if you modify the idea a bit. But according to Dullstar, it is current practice already to ship a LemmixStyles.ini with one's styles.

Your idea appears to be a compromise between extendability on the one hand and simpleness of the data on the other hand. I'd like to wait for other people who worked more with Lemmix to comment on that. I've set up Lemmix only once, and only with the Genesis L1 styles.

-- Simon