[Bf-committers] UNC shares getting closer to working

W. Nelson indigitalspace at yahoo.com
Wed Aug 14 00:23:46 CEST 2013


I have been discussing the UNC shares fix with Elubie.  She has a quick fix that addresses most of the issues.

One of the biggest remaining issues is the use of the double hack use for .blend path versus network location handling UNC.  This is a bit tricky since there is no uniform file handling routine or module in Blender for all code to use.  It is handled by multiple tailored code segments in different parts of the codebase.

In the tricky context of it possibly being a UNC or .blend path I propose that those routines check a user preference before proceeding.  This will be default \\  UNC off and tickable to on.  Or maybe put and operator in the File>External Data menu somehow to establish this and maybe save with individual files.


Therefore the user/studio can determine in those circumstances if it wants to use \\ as UNC instead of .blend path.  Obviously it will have to establish a business rule amongst its workforce that the choice is don't use \\ as a .blend path shortcut.  Of course 3rd party addon use will also have to be considered.


The other logic fix is evaluate as a .blend path as usual but if there is an error or a detectable discrepancy in loading/saving then evaluate as a UNC path next  to see if a the discrepancy is resolved, then if error, fail out if need be.  This would work for missing files on load or missing file path segments on save.  So in cases where Blender would make a path, it would check first to see if there is a valid UNC path of the same reference.  If so, it would use that instead of making a path locally where the .blend file is.

These types of fixes could be worked to fix existing code and then there should be a coding standard set that subsequent merges/patches will adhere to this standard since a standard file i/o module is not very realistic at this point.


This should give a fairly good workable system for those that want to use UNC shares


Existing patch tracker ticket:
https://projects.blender.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=21836&group_id


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