ID:2392181
 
(See the best response by Lummox JR.)
So just stumbled on to this and not sure if it is a bug, so figured I would ask for help here before making any reports. I have noticed that BYOND does not allow renaming the .dme within a project, and if you do it outside of the project and open it then any files (or at least icons for sure) in folders are no longer detected and throw errors in compile.

This can be pretty frustrating when you want to reuse a lot of your work in another project, or simply update a project name. Anyone know a good work around that's faster than creating a bunch of new folders and swapping stuff around? and whether this is a bug or just a windows quirk?
Renaming the dme file works fine, as long as you don't have it open at the time. You should also rename the folder name to match it, otherwise you're gonna end up in ultra-safe mode when you run the game.

I've never had it fail to load any files after renaming.
Best response
1) Close Dream Maker.
2) Rename the .dme file.
3) Rename the .int file.

You shouldn't need to rename the .rsc file because that will recompile. If however you're getting errors about missing icons, it's possible those are only in your .rsc and have been missing from the source for some time--in which case a clean compile would give you the same trouble.
Hmm it looks like renaming the folder and/or .int file fixes it. I was deleting the .int file before thinking it would be remade like the rsc, so I think that was it. I had forgotten the folder last time, too, but pretty sure I'd changed it on others so my bets on the .int.

Thanks for the fix! I figured I was probably missing something.
All the .int does is tell DM a few project specific settings like what tabs you previously had open, FILE_DIR, and things of that nature.

It's likely you're relying on FILE_DIR behavior (which you shouldn't, it slows compiling down a ton), and disabled it by not having a valid .int, as that would make a new one with the default values.

FILE_DIR is what lets you use 'icon.dmi' instead of 'path/to/icon.dmi'
Ah, I forgot 'path/to/icon.dmi' was possible. I have only seen that a couple times, so I always thought both options lead to the same result. Does it have any impact on anything besides compile time? I could switch for new projects, but old ones would be a tad bit annoying to update.
Just compile time, and general code readability. It's easier to find an icon if it's referenced by full path. It's also a lot more friendly when you use two icons with the same name for any reason.

As for the compile time it slows it down because instead of just straight being able to access the file, it has to search the entire file structure for the game and find files by that name.