Use relative path for search path first to access files of mc

[chros]

Hi!

I've written a small but powerful ​build script (along with tmux and tig build script), mostly for outdated systems (like Debian and Ubuntu distros), take a look, maybe you also like it. It can be used for development as well, just drop in patches and modify the version number.
Maybe I'll update the readme later with more info.

When ​compiling mc like ​this, it will properly allocate all the files inside the given '--prefix=' directory, but:

• unfortunately it still uses absolute path to access majority of its files (e.g. help files, skins, etc), so you can't move the whole directory somewhere else: it will complain for missing files

Is it possible to change this to always use relative path for searching for files first?

Thanks

PS: I'd like to thank you guys for keeping this project alive! I'm an 'mc' user for about 25 years now and I can't live without it. :)

[andrew_b]

Replying to chros:

Is it possible to change this to always use relative path for searching for files first?

I think no. ​Standard Directory Variables are set up via autotools. I can't say if prefix can be relative or not.

[zaytsev]

It is not currently possible if we keep on using Standard Directory Variables as we are doing now. The only way to achieve this would be to add internal logic to check whether the corresponding variables have been overridden by the user, and if not, then use paths relative to prefix. This way we can make the package relocatable, but the effort doesn't seem to be worth it.