I'm not enough of a plugin wizard to know if it's feasible, but what if we had an AddonPackagesArchive folder where we could put most of our VARs. VARs there wouldn't load into VAM on startup (making VAM run faster), but in Package Manager there could be a "Scan Archives For Missing Packages" button in addition to the current "Scan Hub For Missing Packages" button. Then if we had a scene that was missing something it could check locally and import it (move it from AddonPackagesArchive to AddonPackages and update the tables in VAM) before going to the Hub. Speaking as someone with almost a 1 TB AddonPackages folder and a painfully slow VAM, this would be a way to keep all the VARs I've hoarded over the years but also keep VAM a little more snappy since only the VARS I'm more recently needing are in the active system. And if I have a dependency not in the active system there's a relatively easy way to retrieve it. Thoughts?
Idea for VAR streamlining?
- Thread starter Daedalus
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If you had a plugin that would only scan on demand a secondary folder for VARs, chances are you would almost always need to scan that folder, unless you were really well organised on what you had on your default AddonsPackages folder and its dependencies and constantly manage that.
But here's the thing, you can move VARs you don't often use to any folder in your system. Whenever you want to use those, just move them to the AP folder and rescan, and take them back when not needed. No plugin needed, just the file manager.
Another option is that you can use more than one VAM, they don't interfere with one another as long they're in different folders.
Essentially, what you need is to do some cleanup if you find that it's very slow and you have too much stuff. You can move stuff out like I said on the first paragraph if it's things you still want to keep but not often use, and you can also remove stuff you don't want. If you want a snappy VAM you either need to stop hoarding or move things out of VAM and hoard them elsewhere.
But here's the thing, you can move VARs you don't often use to any folder in your system. Whenever you want to use those, just move them to the AP folder and rescan, and take them back when not needed. No plugin needed, just the file manager.
Another option is that you can use more than one VAM, they don't interfere with one another as long they're in different folders.
Essentially, what you need is to do some cleanup if you find that it's very slow and you have too much stuff. You can move stuff out like I said on the first paragraph if it's things you still want to keep but not often use, and you can also remove stuff you don't want. If you want a snappy VAM you either need to stop hoarding or move things out of VAM and hoard them elsewhere.
Thanks, yeah... I do those things too (prune older VARs and run a less-encumbered copy of VAM). I'm just trying to think of a way to make that whole process easier. If I could move all of my VARs to the archive except for the few I'm currently working with. Then have the system be able to retrieve the ones I need for dependencies (rather than me having to sift through manually) it would make the process of figuring out what I need and what I don't a lot more organic. Then, a month or two later when VAM starts slogging down again I could just repeat the process. Pipe dream I guess.
The problem is that some shit-packaged VARs will destroy any hopes of keeping your VAM folder with need-only dependencies, unless you edit the VARs meta.jsons or delete the problem VARs. The volume you have will increase the chances of having badly packaged VARs around enormously, and believe me, there are lots of them.
I am not sure what impacts more, the number of packages, package contents sizes, or a combination. There's some external tools around now for managing VARs and stuff, maybe they can help you already. I never used them, no idea what they do and results as I went full manual some time ago and have a nice an clean system now.
I am not sure what impacts more, the number of packages, package contents sizes, or a combination. There's some external tools around now for managing VARs and stuff, maybe they can help you already. I never used them, no idea what they do and results as I went full manual some time ago and have a nice an clean system now.
Fferrett
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I still highly recommend:
https://github.com/feelfar/varManager
I've been using Feelfar's varmanager since it initially released. Current features help with duplicates and stale/old versions as well as switching between different addonpackages archives.... in seconds:
In my setup, I maintain a default addonpacks that includes symlinks to all Vars, a primary addonpacks with a speedy current load of var symlinks, and a clean install addonpack with minor symlinks, that I switch to if I need to fix the core or wipe and reinstall VAM without losing all of the Var configs.
in this manner, its simple to manage - essentially the tool switches the pointer to the desired addonpacks directory. These directories have symlinks back to your var repository... which is also kept pretty clean, using the tools' gardening.
https://github.com/feelfar/varManager
I've been using Feelfar's varmanager since it initially released. Current features help with duplicates and stale/old versions as well as switching between different addonpackages archives.... in seconds:
In my setup, I maintain a default addonpacks that includes symlinks to all Vars, a primary addonpacks with a speedy current load of var symlinks, and a clean install addonpack with minor symlinks, that I switch to if I need to fix the core or wipe and reinstall VAM without losing all of the Var configs.
in this manner, its simple to manage - essentially the tool switches the pointer to the desired addonpacks directory. These directories have symlinks back to your var repository... which is also kept pretty clean, using the tools' gardening.
