Write access/shares in md_inst (best practises question)

[AmigaGamer]

I'm currently near completion on a retropie script for ultima7/exult engine.

The script is working ok but needs refinement. One area specifically has me wondering about best practises/is there a better way?

im using prefix="$md_inst" for my install path of the port.
This creates subfolders on raspberry under /opt/retropie/ports/exult
The default paths for gamedata,audio,patches,saves etc become /opt/retropie/ports/exult/share/exult, which ideally should be writable/accessable to the user to upload the game data.

the "workaround" im using is treating it as a config dir.
moveConfigDir "$md_inst/share/exult" "$romdir/ports/exult/data"
im conscious this is causing symlinks/permission change under /opt and its not really the purpose of moveConfigDir

The alternatives i can think of are
have the retropie build script create or download a pre-configured xml file with custom paths set.
use a different install path.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. link to the script in its current state is

https://github.com/amigagamer/ExultRetropie/blob/master/exult.sh

Thanks in advance.

[BuZz]

It's ok to use moveConfigDir if that is the only way of getting it to look for game data in $romdir - but often it's possible to do it from a commandline parameter or config change which would be preferable I guess (Often a minimal config can be used - which is what we do for vice for example)

[AmigaGamer]

@buzz As always thank you for the feedback

A minimal config in exult would look something like http://exult.sourceforge.net/docs.php#path_config_nix
Writing one with the paths and audio options set is around 80 lines long (where the script itself is only 50!)

To give better context to this im basically trying to automate this guide i wrote in 2014 https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=78&t=77185
I think for the digital audio stuff im going to have to eventually look at how to make the changes to the config file or just deploy one like in the baldurs gate script.

Either way, there was never much interest/response to the guide in the RPI forums, im not sure if its due to the complexity o, or a lack of interest in classic CRPGs so its a personal project. That said i'm trying to make it as clean/compatible as possible so if there is any interest at any point it will be a good stable script for you guys to integrate.

[BuZz]

You can't just set <data_path> on its own ?

[AmigaGamer]

yeah tried that a few days ago. It was still looking at the old path for some extra files (digital audio if i remember). I presumed the defaults are each set as full paths , instead of relative paths of the data folder.
Its also possible i did something wrong so ill try again tomorrow