Have you tried something like this as soon as the application is
launched?
tell app "Finder" to set resourceAlias to resource path of main bundle
as alias
In theory, the alias form should be resilient even if the path changes
within the same volume.
-Ted
On 7-May-08, at 9:54 AM, Craig Hunter wrote:
I've been using various means to get the resource path of my app
bundles for
the last few years, the most useful being "resource path of main
bundle".
Other ways include variations on "path to me". These all seem to
provide
the path of the app when it is first launched, which theoretically
should be
fine. Unfortunately, I have found that a small number of users like
to move
apps while they're running, which invalidates the resource path
determined
at launch time. And then many of the "do shell script" calls in my
apps go
haywire as the files they're referring to are not in the right place.
Does anyone have an idiot-proof way to determine the app bundle path
in real
time that would be practical for on-the-fly location of resources to
be used
in do shell script calls? Right now, I found I can sort of handle the
situation by doing a "path to me" call within a try block at top level
handlers in my script, and when it fails, I put up a dialog telling
the user
the app was moved and needs to be quit now. But if there's an
efficient way
to avoid the situation altogether, that would be even better.
I've also been running into users who skip the advice to install my
apps
directly in /Applications and stick them in folders with names like
"~~
Bill's <freakin> Wonderful! $oftware Folder ~~", which wreaks havoc
with do
shell script when it tries to refer to resources in the app bundle,
but I
think that is best handled with a warning at launch time, since I
can detect
it right away. But if anyone has ideas on that, I'd like to hear
them as
well. Generally, the judicious application of quotes (or quoted
form of)
can handle most meta-character that have special meaning in the UNIX
shell,
but there are some oddball situations.
Thanks,
Craig
--
Dr. Craig Hunter
NASA Langley Research Center
Configuration Aerodynamics Branch
email@hidden
(757) 864-3020
