[Sugar-devel] [OT] Bundles (was: Bundling libraries, RPMs?)

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 18.08.2009, at 17:18, Gary C Martin wrote:

> Hi Bert,
>
> On 18 Aug 2009, at 09:10, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
>> On 17.08.2009, at 23:34, Gary C Martin wrote:
>>
>>> For the Mac users, it's just "Drag this application to your
>>> application folder." Done, end of story. For the worst application
>>> offenders (and there are some, usually some of the big corps who can
>>> get away with it) the user is asked for their admin password, but  
>>> this
>>> always looks like shoddy, dodgy application development from
>>> developers who don't really know what they are doing on a Mac.
>>
>> Gary, this is highly unfair to Mac developers.
>>
>> Self-contained bundles can be installed just by drag-and-drop  
>> indeed. But you need an installer (which might ask for an admin  
>> password) to integrate with the system, e.g. to install QuickLook  
>> plugins which generates previews for your documents, or SpotLight  
>> for indexing. And obviously the "big corps" do define their own  
>> document types, and want them to integrate with the system. Users  
>> expect them to.
>>
>> E.g., Etoys needs an installer on the Mac to put its web browser  
>> plugin in the right library folder. It does nothing "evil", the  
>> main app could as well be installed by drag-and-drop, but we can't  
>> expect everyone to manually install the plugin. Also, the plugin  
>> needs to know where to find the app so we must require the app to  
>> be installed into /Applications. And once we have a QuickLook  
>> plugin we will need to install that too. Now you may call Etoys  
>> development "shoddy and dodgy" all you like, but please blame it  
>> for its actual faults.
>
> Hmmm.... Sorry Bert, but pretty sure everything you mention above  
> (QuickLook, SpotLight indexing, file document types/icons, web  
> plugins) for can go in the users ~/Library with absolutely no need  
> to request admin permissions for the whole system (affecting all  
> users).

Not if an install for all users is what you want. Like when Dad  
installs this on the family Mac for his kids.

> I agree you might want to use an installer rather than drag and  
> drop, though first run of an App could put these extras in place as  
> needed.

Each user installing a separate copy of the plugins in her home  
directory does not exactly sound clean to me. It's certainly not  
recommended by Apple - their policy is drag-and-drop for simple apps,  
installer for more complex ones.

> As for hard-coding a path to /Applications, you can ask the system  
> to tell you the path to the application bundle, but if I remember,  
> there are a few cases where even Apple slips up on this one (and I'm  
> sure causes no end of bug reports and support calls for Apple when  
> folks system upgrade after moving such an Application) – so I won't  
> diss you too much for that hack ;-)
>
> Also as an alternitive, if you have control of the file format  
> bundle, QuickLook previews and SpotLight indexes can also live  
> there, though I understand that you'll likely want to keep with an  
> existing cross-platform file format that can't take advantage.

Precisely.

> So I'd say Etoys could just be a single drag'n'drop Mac application  
> into Applications folder (that does it's extras on first run, MS Mac  
> apps do this quite a bit), or at the very least a regular package  
> installer with no need for the admin password.
>
> Apologies for the off list topic reply.
>
> Regards,
> --Gary
>
> P.S. So, can I have a job now making Etoys truly Mac friendly ;-)

That would be wonderful! Join the etoys developers list at

http://lists.squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/etoys-dev

- Bert -