Organizing Ye Ole Doom Folder

[Snakes]

LONG VERSION:
Over the past few weeks, I noticed something rather horrid about my /doom folder on my computer - it was a cluttered, redundant mess. Lately, I went about trying to think of ways to reduce, if nothing else, the redundancies of it. There's been a snag in the process, though: I've started keeping most wads I've played, as well as most demos I've watched. Now, my idea is to break the folder down into these components:

Source Ports
Doom
Doom 2
Final Doom
Personal Projects/Demos
Demos
Editors/Utilities

Where the first three folders would contain files created for said IWAD, while the "Source Ports" folder would be strictly for playing, recording, and watching demos. This way, the only redundancies that would exist would be from the IWADs. The downside: I'd have to find the "flavor of the week" wad that I want to play, record, etc., move it to the Source Ports section, and once all is said and done, delete that copy of it. Seems like a lot of unnecessary steps, but it also seems unavoidable. At least it'd be a vast improvement over my current set up, which worked back when I got rid of everything immediately after playing it. So, there's quite a conundrum for me: it has to change, but I can't think of a really good way to arrange everything.

SHORT VERSION:
So my question for you guys (especially those who keep a large amount of files) is this: how do you organize your Doom directory? It's become quite a hassle for me, and maybe your method might work out a little better for my intended archiving.

[Phobus]

I try to make use of a launcher as much as possible, thus reducing redundant copies of IWADs and needing to move any files around. As I'm a ZDoom player 99% of the time, it's pretty easy. My filing system makes a distinction between each of the IWADs. However, GZDoom and ZDoom mods have their own folder and inside of those there's an (Ultimate) Doom folder for their specific mods. I also try to group .WADs within folders by author if I have a lot of their work. Deathmatch .WADs (all few of them that I have) get their own folder too.

I also have a Personal Projects folder, a folder for each individual port that isn't ZDoom and a folder full of Resources I might make use of one day.

Basically, for most play information I need never worry about reading a text file, as the placement of the .WADs in the filing system should tell me enough most of the time.

In case that's unclear:

DOOM
-chocorenderlimits
-Deathmatch
-Doom 2 Mods
--40oz
--Alien Vendetta (because it's more than just a .WAD and a .txt)
--other authors, series and the like...
-+anything that doesn't go into one of these subfolders
-Evilution Wads
--
-+
-GZDoom
-GZDoom Mods
--
-+
-Heretic or HeXen Mods (I don't have many of them)
-Personal Projects
-Plutonia Wads
--
-+
-Resources
-XWE
-ZDoom Mods
--folders for authors, series, multi-part mods and Ultimate Doom Mods (subfolders where necessary)
-+
+IWADs, ZDoom.exe, etc.

Like I say though, this only really works well because I use a launcher.

[DaniJ]

I only try to organise my mods and never the source ports I use to run them. Trying to force all source ports into the same install folder doesn't really work unless you happen to only be interested in a couple of relatively similar ones.

[Rambosee]

Mostly, I have everything organized. All source ports are on my desktop, all wads in the wad folder, and then my maps go into another folder.

[valkiriforce]

I have a downloads folder, which contains Doom 2, Final Doom, and Ultimate Doom folders for each game type. Anything that requires a source port goes in the ZDoom folder. Otherwise, the other three directories contain vanilla WADs related to any which game I've downloaded it for.

[Mithran Denizen]

In my laptop's Doom directory, I have seperate subdirectories for each source port, and in many cases several versions of each alongside each other. I only keep a single copy of my IWADs, though, all in a single directory. I set up the DOOMWADDIR environment variable accordingly, so that I don't have to piss around with full path command line arguments as often, nor redundantly copied files for each engine.

PWADs and similar categories of downloaded crap all get jammed into a handful of subdirectories (PWADs\, utils\, ), but I've never even tried to organize the huge shit-monsoon of useless stuff that I make myself. There are gigabytes of half finished textures, maps, midis, sprites, and engine hacks spread all over the file system, some of it dating back years. Now there's some method to this madness, and I know where pretty much everything is when I need it; if I dropped dead, though, I wouldn't envy a person trying to go through my computer or complete any of my projects.

I have set up a semi-elaborate system of batch files to let me pick my engine, iwad, arguments, and so on with a minimum number of keystrokes, but I never really use it anyway.

Pretty much everything is launched with cmd.exe. Windows Vista/7 even make this easy on you by letting you open a command line in any directory if you hold shift and right-click that directory's background in the explorer shell.


Tl;dr:
Yeah, my shit is mostly a huge mess too.

[majik__]

At the moment, the computer which contains everything (read: EVERYTHING I EVER DOWNLOADED EVER) related to doom or the source ports has this filing-system:

[ HYPHENS INDICATE SUBFOLDER LEVEL]

C:/Doom
// Launchers
- ZDaemon
- Doomseeker
- DoomConnector
// Source Ports
- Skulltag
- ZDoom
- GZDoom
- Eternity
// WADs
- IWADs
- PWADs
-- COOP
-- DM/FFA/etc.
-- CTF
-- etc
-- GetWAD
--- README
// Editing/Modding
- Doom Builder
-- WIP
- SLADE
- Resources
-- MIDIs
-- Textures
-- Flats
-- Customs

Every couple months I sort out the /GetWAD directory and place whichever PWAD in such-and-such folder, put the readme files in the /README directory.

Simple folder-names, easy to remember, organised so I stop ripping my hair out in big chunks every time I save a really cool project idea and lose it forever in the depths of my hard-drive.

-majik

[kmxexii]

My Doom folder's root has the IWADs for Doom and Doom II. Then I have any WADs I'm playing through or looking to play (Hell Revealed in this case). ZDoom's in there. Then I have a folder containing all the PWADs I've played through (used to be organized, not anymore), a folder housing all the PWADs I've downloaded as per my interests, then a folder marked incoming which is more stuff I've downloaded but earmarked for future play. And a few folders for other source ports (PrBoom, Chocolate Doom, Eternity).

[Acid]

Skulltag was originally installed on my 4GB USB (fail on my part), so I had to move it to the Documents. Not really organized in any way, except 'Random Wads' that are for ID Games and Coop levels.

[Sigvatr]

All of my Doom stuff is in one folder :(

Over 2 gigs of stuff.

[hex11]

The old way: download misc. files from an idgames mirror (or other website) into various dirs, like ~/doom/wads/0923. Unzip files, play, often don't bother to clean up unzipped files. Result: big mess.

The new way: use "wget -m" to keep my own local idgames mirror. Files from other sites get mirrored to a different dir (dirname = site's hostname). Except for downloading files, those dirs are read-only, and in fact the filesystem they occupy is usually mounted read-only. Anything I want to play gets unzipped to /tmp. I make short notes in a TXT file about which PWADs were interesting, etc. Result: no clutter.

The downside is that to play any PWAD, I have to unzip it first. But it's easy enough to do that via file manager (in my case that's vifm), which is also used to browse, search, etc. I thought about writing a custom Doom Shell type interface, but I'm not sure it would really buy me much...

[Jodwin]

Snakes said:

This way, the only redundancies that would exist would be from the IWADs. The downside: I'd have to find the "flavor of the week" wad that I want to play, record, etc., move it to the Source Ports section, and once all is said and done, delete that copy of it. Seems like a lot of unnecessary steps, but it also seems unavoidable.

[Gez]

It is a bit messy in place but it works for me

Doom
- Saves
- Screenshots
- Soundfonts
- Source
-- Eternity
-- GZDoom
-- Old
--- Boom
--- Dehacked
--- Deutex
--- Doom
--- Heretic
--- Hexen
--- MBF
--- Skulltag
--- Wolf3D
-- Slade
-- ZDoom
- Stuff // For pretty much any random stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere, such as PDF manuals
- Wad
-- Autoload
-- Custom
-- Doom 1
-- Doom 2
-- Doom 64 // contains Doom64 EX
-- Doom Plutonia
-- Doom TNT
-- Heretic
-- Hexen
-- Resources
-- Strife
-- Test // All the maps downloaded or created not for their gameplay but to check engine quirks and bugs
-- Wolf 3D
-- Workshop // That one's for my personal projects, rare as they are

[tempun]

I have a wads/ subfolder will all the IWADs, PWADs, PK3s and stuff and have DOOMWADDIR evironment variable pointing to it. That way I don't have to copy stuff into each port's folder (except Eternity, which for some reason doesn't search DOOMWADDIR for PWADs, only IWADs, and Doomsday, whose launcher I pointed to this folder manually). And a subfolder for each port (except Doomsday) and utility.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Jodwin said:

CLD image

I've been meaning to mention this to you for a while now, but CDL doesn't like higher text DPI sizes. I'm running 125% and the run and refresh buttons are cut off along with the tree tab. Everything can still be clicked so it's not a really big issue.

[Jodwin]

Dragonsbrethren said:

I've been meaning to mention this to you for a while now, but CDL doesn't like higher text DPI sizes. I'm running 125% and the run and refresh buttons are cut off along with the tree tab. Everything can still be clicked so it's not a really big issue.

Thanks for letting me know, I'll have to see if there's an easy fix to that.

[myk]

D:\DOOM
|---0\ (IWAD demos)
|---1\ (PWAD demos)
|---M\ (Miscellaneous)
|---P\ (My project)
|---W\ (PWADs)
|---A (A tiny file that lets me skip the "PWAD notice" in DOOM)
|---DEFAULT.CFG
|---DOOM.WAD (v1.9)
|---DOOM2.WAD (v1.9)

0 (IWAD demos) has one folder per level, one per episode and one for full DOOM II movies. 1 (PWAD demos) has alphabetical folders with folders named after PWADs that hold the demos, W (PWADs) has alphabetical folders with zipped PWADs. M (Miscellaneous) holds the following folders:

demo (demo editing utilities) - 12 subdirs
edit (level editing utilities) - 14 subdirs
exec (engines, source ports, hacking tools) - 28 subdirs
game (old versions of DOOM and DOOM II) - 20 subdirs
hack (DeHackEd or Cracker patches) - various patches
icon (some DOOM related icons) - loose icons
info (utilities that get data from WADs) - 7 subdirs
midi (MIDI and MUS utilities) - 7 subdirs
mult (multiplayer engines or utilities) - 7 subdirs
page (a copy of my doom2.net web site) - 10 subdirs
pwad (WAD editing utilities) - 11 subdirs, some ZIPs
temp (some temporary stuff) - various junk folders/files
text (generic manuals and documents) - 4 subdirs
util (generic DOOM utilities) - a few utilities

It also contains various versions of vanilla that are unzipped automatically when used. I use three easy shortcuts to the command line (full screen for DOS, a window for ports or tools and an extra window for some DOS related stuff) and another that opens the DOOM folder. This post explains how I run the game when I use vanilla (most often.) I use the command line for ports, except multiplayer engines (where I use IDE.)

[Dr. Durr]

I use the launcher in my PrBoom.
I just throw my PWADs in the Library/Application Support/PrBoom folder with my IWADs

[Fournaridis]

I use zDoom - I haven't figured out what other ports to use yet, or how to use them, or how to apply them, or even what they do, what they're for and when the appropriate time to use them is. There's just too many. I'm kinda simple like that, though.

Otherwise, I have zDoom, Doom 1 & 2 - Plutonia, Evilution and dozens upon dozens of other WADs in one folder, and backed up on my own personal Doom flash drive!

[Snakes]

Hm... interesting stuff, guys. I'm definitely going to have to go for one of the set-ups that had more than one source port intended, as I follow the chocdoom, prboom+, and zdoom pattern (plus odamex and EE, each for special occasions). If nothing else, the folder will be far better off now than it was for what I had in mind. I think i have a plan as to how to approach, thanks :)

[GreyGhost]

My Doom stuff is spread across 3 partitions, but broadly speaking the wads I'm playing are in C-drive with the IWADS in C:\DOOM95 and ports, tools, PWADS and other stuff in sub-directories. E-drive holds the work-in-progress and miscellaneous files (in separate directories) and the archives are in F-drive.

[Bucket]

In my Doom folder:

created levels\
created levels\collabs\
created levels\textures\
Doom Builder\
Doom Seeker\
iwads\
Odamex\
pwads\
Skulltag\
Zdoom\

[Creaphis]

I rely on the occasional hardware failure to wipe out my collection of Doom wads so that I can start fresh. Recently I've only been saving especially impressive, noteworthy or useful wads on my hard drive which is helping keep their numbers down.

[Megamur]

Both my DOOM and DOOM II folders have a WADs subfolder, and both WADs subfolders have New folders under that, where I place WADs that are "in queue," that haven't been played yet.

When the WADs in the New folder have been played, they are either moved back to the primary WADs folder (DOOM II), or are moved into a folder that's categorized by date (DOOM). Why do I only categorize the DOOM 1 WADs by date? I'm not sure. I think it's so I know exactly where all the `94 WADs are. :)

[Redeemer812]

I play Doom on Linux, so whenever I setup a source port it either A) gets its own folder to live in under my /home/ folder, or B) gets thrown into one of the /bin/ and /share/ folders on root so that I can run it anywhere under any credentials.

I really ought to throw all of my sourceports into a /bin/ folder, but I'm lazy and I'm the only one who uses my computer, so whatever.

As for my custom doom wads, they're all thrown into one large folder that is included in the PATH of all of my source ports.

[The Pursuer]

Jodwin said:

Thanks for letting me know, I'll have to see if there's an easy fix to that.

I've pm'ed you another issue i've had with your program out of reassurance.