What's up with the "user.lib" file

[sagevanni]

Hi all you APCD designers,

I recall some designers have mentioned deleting the "user.lib" file before opening or starting a course or new course.

Can someone who does this please explain in detail why you do this.

Thanks for your time............

Sage.....

[Ian Wells]

Hi Sage,
This is my interpretation of what happens.
The user.lib file stores all the textures that are used in a course and if you use the same APCD file each time you open a course file all textures in that course file are added to the user.lib file. I believe(?) that if you have texture named "rough" in the user.lib file and the new course file also has the same name the existing rough texture in the user.lib will be seen in the new APCD file and not the texture that is downloaded.
I hasten to add that this is my theory and may be pure bulls**t.
If you use the same APCD file for each course, only the textures used on that course will be stored in the course user.lib file.
I hope that a real designer will explain the real reason.

Ian

[sagevanni]

Thanks Ian, I'll wait for some more answers to make sure if anyone really knows and can say definitively.

Sage......

[linkster]

I agree with Ian.

The textures for a course are stored in the .crz file (except the stock textures) and the user.lib file is just the APCD making a copy of all the textures it encounters. This shortens the course loading process by maybe 30 seconds. However, there seems to be bugs in the copy procedure and the texture properties (especially seam blends) end up garbled. One issue I see often is that the APCD only checks the texture name, and assumes that it is the same texture, but it may have a completely different tga.

I delete the user.lib file EVERY time I open the APCD. I even created a batch file to automate the delete and open process. The advantage of this is that the seam blend properties don't get mixed up. The disadvantage is that the load time takes 30 seconds longer. When adding textures to a new course, I clone a similar stock texture and use a tga from a collection I keep.

I highly recommend that you delete the user.lib file often. Especially with the wide number and variety of course you work on. Hope this helps.

[dwg]

I'm not an APCD person, but I am a systems person and it sounds like user.lib could be a real problem child, it would grow indefinitely and if it is not doing any checking other than name checking that is highly problematic, it sounds like the management process of it is unfinished. Rather than a user library perhpas the powers that be should have had it as a course library.

[sagevanni]

Thanks Linkster, Thanks Des.......

Linkster, may I have a copy of your bat file?

I'll deleting the "user.lib" file before opening APCD.

Thanks again guys....!!!!!!

Sage.....

[Colin Jones]

Just when you're beginning to believe you know it all.................

[sagevanni]

Here's my bat........it works....

del "C:\APCD\1 - APCD - With good Object files\user.lib"

start /d "C:\APCD\1 - APCD - With good Object files" APCD.exe

Sage.......

[Adelade]

Yes there seems to be so many ways in which the user.lib file can cause problems if not kept clean, so thats why I always start fresh with each new course and occasionally reset it at other times too. Lez brings up some ways in which the user.lib can cause problems in his APCD video series, and how to keep the library clean, which is what made me do it in the first place. The only benefit to not resetting it would be to access a lot of textures you've used in the past, but I keep the textures I've used as TGA files on my computer rather than within APCD, and import them individually when I wish to, which keeps things clean. I have never had a large user.lib file, but based on what Ive seen of other designers sometimes having issues with their textures, and in general having some experiences with other shortcomings of APCD, I strongly suspect that having a lot of textures in your library file is a bad thing.
Unless you enjoy running into problems...

Sometimes you can solve certain problems that have already occurred by deleting the user.lib too, like if a texture on my course has gotten corrupted and displays oddly both in APCD and in Links (which has happened to me 3 or 4 times), or if my seam blend properties get mixed up (which has probably happened to me 5-10 times despite not displaying panorama within APCD), i can solve them quickly by deleting my user.lib, then opening an earlier version of my course before the problem happened, then opening the newest version of the course again. Of course you have to be mindful about any changes to specific textures you made on purpose in between though.

[sagevanni]

Hey Adelade,
Very nice to hear from you....!!!!!

I feel there are MANY different computer configurations that APCD does not get along with. I have my APCD stuff set up the way I have found it works for me with the least amount of mishaps.

Thanks for everyone's input..............

Sage......