It’s astounding how little coherence there has been from Autodesk on this issue of installations, eh? In the end I’ve ended up doing what feels like the simplest thing since I need to set directories for both Mel and Python, and I’m still using “open_me_to_install.ma”:
[ul]
[li]determine if extra paths are needed for either mel or maya (the locations are relative to this .ma)
[/li][li]find any existing userSetup.py and userSetup.mel files
[/li][li]if python path is needed AND there is an exsiting userSetup.py file but NO existing userSetup.mel:
[/li][li] append the sys.path.append() to the end of the existing userSetup.py
[/li][li]otherwise:
[/li][li]append (or create) userSetup.mel including any needed path commands for BOTH mel and python
[/li][/ul]
Call me crazy, but that at least runs in most cases on Mya’s 2012-2014, and users just dump the contents of the local mel and python directories elsewhere if you don’t like it. This works with repeated update syncs of the same repo location on the local disk…