Editing scripts in a standalone

[Shari]

I just realized that the inability to edit scripts in a standalone 
blows the entire marketing strategy of the project I'm working on.

This program is going to have several plug ins, or additions to it, 
over a long period of time.  Additions that will be sold separately 
from the program.

Rather than make someone download a brand new program every time he 
wants to add a module, I had planned to set these additions up as 
updates, that would patch into the program and make whatever changes 
were needed, add images, sounds, and change the scripts etc.

If anyone has ever played Realmz, you download the engine, and the 
modules run off the same engine.  This would be similar, except the 
modules would actually update the engine.

That way, if 5 modules use Image AAA, and it's not in the main engine 
as it wasn't conceived of until that particular module was created, 
the module embeds Image AAA into the engine, and all modules 
thereafter can use that image easily.  (No I will NOT put images and 
sounds into a separate folder for the world to steal.  They will be 
embedded.)

As the MAIN CODE of the engine will be affected by each module, the 
intention was to update it to include the modules as they came into 
being.  And the modules themselves would do the updating.  Each 
script would be versioned.  And the latest script would overwrite the 
older script.

To expect someone to download the entire program every time you 
release a module they want, is bad programming.  That's not how it's 
done.

Any decent program has the ability to be patched.  Especially for bug 
fixes and so forth.  To avoid making your users download the entire 
thing.

Apparently patching is not an option, unless as Scott mentioned you 
are making such an amount of money that you can buy some second, 
special license in addition to the first license.

Does anyone have any specific ideas on how to deal with this?  It's a 
MAJOR issue for this project.  I was relying on the ability to update 
the program using the modules.  This was a long term marketing 
strategy.

Note that the modules will be using the same code as the engine, but 
that the engine code will need to accomodate the modules.  There's no 
way to program this in advance, without the modules all being created 
before the engine is ever released.

Updating would actually have added a series of if-thens to the main 
code.  Where a piece of code might now have 3 if-thens, each module 
may, or may not, add an if to that piece of code.

The modules affect the menubar as well.  As there is a menu to turn 
the modules on/off, or load them, as the case may be.

As each module will affect a different piece of code, there's no way 
of knowing in advance what code will be affected, until the module is 
created.

This is a major setback.  I am not a happy camper!

:-(
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