-if not ROOT: raise Exception,"Cannot find ROOT for myslice"
-if not DATAROOT: raise Exception,"Cannot find DATAROOT for myslice"
+if not os.path.isdir(ROOT): raise Exception,"Cannot find ROOT %s for unfold"%ROOT
+if not os.path.isdir(HTTPROOT): raise Exception,"Cannot find HTTPROOT %s for unfold"%HTTPROOT
+
+# dec 2013 - we currently have 2 auxiliary subdirs with various utilities
+# that we do not wish to package
+# * sandbox is for plugin developers
+# * sample is for various test views
+# for each of these, if we find a directory of that name under ROOT, it then gets
+# inserted in INSTALLED_APPS and its urls get included (see urls.py)
+auxiliaries = [ 'sandbox', 'sample', ]