Project files for saving and loading

[jenncross]

"What about selecting a "project" file instead of a folder? Like when you build a project in Java, LaTeX, etc. and the IDE has you select the project file and that directs to all of the correct sub files? That might also help a lot with the multiple project issue too." - Jenn

"I like the idea of a project file, even if it's essentially a "dummy" that just directs to the real location of the files." - Tom

[chrisbartley]

A project file could be implemented as a zip or jar containing all the expressions, sequences, and any custom audio files added by the user. That would be clean, with no extra directories littering things up. And sharing with another user is a breeze!

Drawback is reduced sharing of expressions/sequences between projects, unless we implement some sort of import/export scheme (which, for sequences, could get quite hairy). Perhaps a simple interim solution would be to just tell people to clone a project file if they want to reuse expressions/sequences somewhere else.

A question that remains is what to do with the stock audio files. They're 28 MB total. Maybe they only get installed in your project file if you ask for them? Or only the ones you actually use get installed? Seems silly to always install all 28 MB of audio into every project file. Maybe there's a way for them to live within the VP core and still be playable.

This was dealt with in the zipsave branch and has now been included in the BirdBrainDev branch. Projects are saved as zips and attempting to load old projects converts them to the zip format.