Packing one into every zip meant a tester who unzipped a new build over
their folder got their configuration replaced. bindings.txt has never had
that problem, because the exe carries the template and writes the file
only when it is absent. environ.ini now works the same way, so a new
build can land on an existing folder and every setting survives.
The 245-line template moves out of pack-dist.ps1 and into RPL4ENVIRON.cpp
as the exe's own literal, which also means the exe alone can produce a
working install. It was lifted mechanically rather than retyped, and the
file it writes is line-for-line identical to the one we have been
shipping - only the line endings changed, from a mongrel 243 LF plus one
stray CRLF that PowerShell's Set-Content left on the end, to the uniform
LF the game already writes bindings.txt with.
It cannot simply become optional. Without environ.ini, L4GAUGE is unset -
which disables the gauge renderer and takes every MFD with it - and
L4MFDSPLIT is unset, which is the packed-window arcade layout rather than
the glass cockpit. The shipped values ARE the desktop game; the built-in
getenv fallbacks are the 1995 pod. So the game writes the file rather
than tolerating its absence.
The cost of a file that is never overwritten is that a tester carrying
one across many builds stops being offered new options. Nothing breaks -
an option added later defaults to "behave as before" - but it goes
unnoticed, and "the podium does not work" is a confusing bug report when
the real answer is that their environ.ini predates RP412PODIUM. So the
load names every template key the player's file has never mentioned, and
says they are at built-in defaults and that deleting the file brings the
documented one back. A stale seven-line file lists all 40.
The file is read, never rewritten. The mention test is deliberately
generous - a key counts as known if it appears in any form, commented or
not - because the failure it guards against is worse than a missed
notice: environ.ini is applied line by line, so a second copy of a key
appearing later in the file would silently override the player's own.
The version line also moves to the top of WinMain. It used to print after
the environment was loaded, so the first thing in rpl4.log was a message
about environ.ini rather than which build wrote it.
Verified: the written file matches the old shipped one line for line; an
edited file with a hand-added comment survives another run untouched; a
seven-line file from an older build boots and names all 40 options it has
never heard of; and a full mission on a self-written file brings up the
glass cockpit at 125% with the virtual RIO active and nothing alarming in
the log.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
It stopped being a controls map somewhere around the display arrangement
and the joystick wizard, and a page called CONTROLS.html is the wrong
place to look for what a file in the game folder does. So:
docs/rp412-controls.html is now docs/rp412-handbook.html and ships as
HANDBOOK.html, titled to match.
The new section answers the question the page could not: what is in the
game folder and which of it is yours. Four files are - environ.ini,
bindings.txt, pilot.cfg, mfd_layout.cfg - and only the first ships, so a
fresh unzip has none of the others and deleting one simply starts that
part over. A second table covers the shipped engine data, which nobody
should edit but everybody eventually wonders about: which INI the gauge
canvas comes from, why there are audio mixer tables for hardware that has
not existed since 1995, and that JOYSTICK.INI is the legacy path rather
than anything the new joystick support reads.
The callout carries the two that actually catch people, both of which
have caught us during this work: environ.ini is applied OVER the
environment, so a variable set in a shell loses to an uncommented line in
the file; and bindings.txt is never overwritten once it exists, which is
what protects a player's edits and also why an update's new defaults do
not appear until it is deleted.
CONTROLS.txt keeps its name. It is the controls half in plain text for
Notepad, which is still exactly what it is, and the README now says so
rather than describing the two as the same thing.
Verified by rendering the packed HANDBOOK.html headless: both tables and
the callout sit in the page's own components, the footer names the new
file, and the version stamp still flows through - the shipped copy reads
4.12.96 from the build it was packed with.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
CydandClaude Opus 5