# Folder Options

PinballY uses a number of external files to read and store information on the pinball tables you have installed on your system, and the video and graphic files displayed in the UI. This dialog lets you tell PinballY where to look for these files.

## Media folder

This is the base folder where all of the graphics and video files for your games are installed. This folder contains subfolders for different media types and for different systems (Visual Pinball, Future Pinball, etc). The actual media files are stored in subfolders according to the type of image/video they contain.

This is the "global" base folder that contains all of the other media folders, so this folder affects all game systems. Each system's media folder is always a subfolder of this main folder.

- Use the PinballY folder: Selects the Media folder within your main PinballY install folder (the folder where you installed the PinballY program files).
- Use the PinballX folder: Selects the Media folder within your PinballX program folder, assuming you've also installed PinballX. This option is useful if you've been using PinballX and you've already set it up with videos and images for your tables, because it lets PinballY share your existing PinballX media files directly, without the need to copy or move any files. This option also makes it easy to switch back and forth between PinballX and PinballY.

  You shouldn't use this option if you haven't installed PinballX, since there won't be an existing PinballX folder to share in this case. This will cause errors when PinballY tries to read files from the non-existent folder location.

- Use a different folder: This option lets you choose a specific folder, rather than using one of the default locations. This gives you full control in case you have an unusual setup that requires a special location for these files.

  It's usually better to use one of the defaults, since the default settings will adapt more automatically if you ever move files around. If you enter a fixed folder path, you'll have to remember to update the setting if you should ever move that folder to a different parent folder or to a different disk drive.

## Table database folder

This is the base folder where your "table database" files are stored. These are XML files that contain information the installed games, such as the title of each game, the manufacturer, and the pinball program that it's written for.

As with the Media folder, this is the global base folder for all of the individual table database folders for the different game player systems (Visual Pinball, etc). Each system has its own subfolder within this main folder.

- Use the PinballY folder: Selects the Databases folder within your main PinballY install folder (the folder where you installed the PinballY program files).
- Use the PinballX folder: Selects the Databases folder within your PinballX program folder, assuming you've also installed PinballX. This option is useful if you've been using PinballX and you've already set up your table lists there, because it lets PinballY share your existing PinballX table lists directly, without the need to copy or move any files. This option also makes it easy to switch back and forth between PinballX and PinballY.

  You shouldn't use this option if you haven't installed PinballX, since there won't be an existing PinballX folder to share in this case. This will cause errors when PinballY tries to read files from the non-existent folder location.

- Use a different folder: This option lets you choose a specific folder, rather than using one of the default locations. This gives you full control in case you have an unusual setup that requires a special location for these files.

  It's usually better to use one of the defaults, since the default settings will adapt more automatically if you ever move files around. If you enter a fixed folder path, you'll have to remember to update the setting if you should ever move that folder to a different parent folder or to a different disk drive.

## Sort the XML database files by table title

If you check this box, PinballY will rearrange the <game> tags in the XML database files into alphabetical order, by table title, whenever it saves changes to the XML files.

By default (if this box is not checked), PinballY simply preserves the original ordering of the tags in the files, to minimize the changes it makes, in case you arranged the tags by hand into a particular order on purpose.

If you hand-edit the files outside of PinballY, it might (or might not) be more convenient to have PinballY rearrange the tags into sorted order by table name. You can use this option to select which way works better for your situation.

If you don't have any need to hand-edit the XML files, you probably don't care what order they're in. In that case, it's better to leave the box un-checked, since the sorting process takes a little extra time each time the files must be updated.

Note that PinballY will only rearrange the files into sorted order when it needs to save changes. PinballY tries to avoid re-writing the XML files unless it's actually necessary, which means that you've made some sort of change to table metadata that requires updating the files. So checking this box by itself won't have any immediate effect on the XML files; they'll only be rearranged into sorted order the next time they need to be saved due to metadata changes, such as changes made through the Edit Game Details dialog.