----- Original Message -----
From: "Will Gilbert" <email@hidden>
To: "Johnny Kewl" <email@hidden>
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 4:59 PM
Subject: Re: ShortCuts in a MAC?
On Feb 10, 2008, at 9:37 AM, Johnny Kewl wrote:
Actually amazed at this... think I could get used of it ;)
There are some pretty clever engineers at Apple. Not to say that UNIX and
Windows doesn't also have clever engineers working on their OS'es.
Just a few more questions..
Under the MacApp folder... can applications safely write to those files
and add unrelated folders.
I'm thinking for example that having a file associated with the app may
be optional.. so if the user says no it mustnt handle .Text
then the app changes its own Info.plist file.
Then I'm thinking if the application has an optional module... and that
Jar is added to Resources/Jar and the Info.plist modified accordingly
And I thinking it persists user prefrences to a folder called
MacApp.App/RememberStuff
In some weird sense you probably could, but it's not considered standard
practice and is going to cause problems when either (A) the application
is run from a shared server, (B) by multiple users on the same computre,
or (C) the user upgrades by dragging and dropping a new version,
replacing the older one. Yicks!
Ha ha... oops, yes not smart... u see, I'm not Macified yet ;)
Preferences is better outside...
Simple preferences are written to "~/Library/Preferences", the Java
preference API takes care of this for you -- it's great and cross
platform. Am assuming you know what "~" is, user's home directory.
For the kind of module stuff you're talking about I would consider using
"~/Library/Application Support". You could keep modules in a folder in
there and then load them with a JarClassLoader by reading all the JARs
the directory, dynamically. This is not cross platform but it's quite
easy to figure out what platform you are on, then use the correct file
path to load the JARs. This way new versions would just pick the
existing modules and each user would have their own set of modules.
Now I am learning, I assume this "~/Library/Application Support"
is using Javas extension mechanism....
mmmm... that means classpath, and I always try keep stuff out of general
class paths.
Playing with JarPacker I see it happily packs an executable Jar and its LIB
folder...
so... I think I would aim at application specific modules being added there.
Just means than my xml parser wont mess with other apps etc...
ALL OK?
And then one more thing....
In this environment, is there a concept of SHORTCUT links? Like in the
MS system?
They are called 'aliases' and are much smarter than UNIX or Windows
Symbolic links. You can move the original file the alias will still find
it. But now we're getting very non-cross platform, Mac OS supports
symbolic links as well.
I'd like to learn a little more about aliases....
Do they setup in much the same way as a MacApp file structure...
Can they be set from shell script?
I asked to to see if my assumption that the app is all over the place is
correct...
so I imagine that if the users wants to run the app, its say at
/user/theappfolder/MacApp
and then on the Desktop and in other folders they, if they linux orientated
to symlinks
or if they Macified to aliases...
When we write java apps (yes I know is not platform universal), we always
give the user the
choice of (add shortcut to Start Menu or Desktop, or Quick launch) and it
would be nice
to give Mac users the same facility....?
If we have to make a MacApp type structure... thats no problem
I imagine the Mac has something like "~/Desktop/"
Thanks.... again
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Java-dev mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/java-dev/email@hidden
