INFORMATION FOR PACKAGERS

As of version 1.0.0, FFGo is packaged with Setuptools and can thus be handled
in a similar way to most other Python packages distributed on PyPI.

Note: the following advice (mostly inherited from FGo!) is more suited to
      private system-wide installations on Unix-like systems than to
      distribution packages or non-Unix systems.

= Location =
Besides the standard installation method relying on pip and Setuptools (or
'setup.py install ...'), an FFGo release package can be extracted anywhere and
the program can be run from that location using the 'ffgo-launcher.py' script
(when installing using the standard 'setup.py'-based method, this script is
not used at all and should be ignored). For example, FFGo can be installed to
a specific user's home directory, and that user will be able to run it right
away with the 'ffgo-launcher.py' script, provided that the needed dependencies
are installed.

For system-wide installations of FFGo, the main 'ffgo-x.y.z' directory may be
copied, with its entire contents, to '/opt/ffgo' or similar. Then, you may
create a symlink to the 'ffgo-launcher.py' script in a directory listed in the
PATH environment variable.

= Documentation =
The program documentation is stored in the top-level 'docs' directory and
can be either symlinked from '/usr/share/doc/ffgo' or copied there.

= Icons =
Icons are stored in 'share/icons' and can be either symlinked from or copied
to the proper directories in '/usr/share/icons'.

= Desktop =
A desktop file, 'ffgo.desktop', is available in the top-level 'share'
directory. It creates a menu entry for FFGo and simplifies the creation of
application launchers. It can be either symlinked from or copied to
'/usr/share/applications', and expects the 'ffgo' executable or
'ffgo-launcher.py' script (depending on the installation method you chose, you
should adapt the 'Exec' entry in 'ffgo.desktop') to be available through
$PATH, as well as icons to be in the right place.

= Presets =
The default FFGo settings are quite minimal and the user is required to
perform a few minor tasks, such as setting the needed paths for FlightGear
data, aircrafts, scenery, etc. as well as for the 'fgfs' executable. However,
a 'presets' file is available in 'ffgo/data/config', which can be used to
specify settings that the packager wants to be enabled by default.

For example, in a system-wide installation, this will allow every user to run
FFGo without having to bother with its basic setup; other FFGo and FlightGear
options can also be specified in that file. The 'presets' file is well
commented and will be used by FFGo every time the '$USER_DATA_DIR/config' file
cannot be found (where '$USER_DATA_DIR' is '~/.ffgo' on all platforms but
Windows, where it is '%APPDATA%/FFGo [cf. ffgo/constants.py in the source]).
For instance, this is the case when FFGo is run by the user for the first
time.
