Re: "First Run" installation of Application support stuff?
Re: "First Run" installation of Application support stuff?
- Subject: Re: "First Run" installation of Application support stuff?
- From: Mike Ferris <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 13:27:37 -0800
This is not directed at any specific person (although I could direct it
at a number of companies whose apps I have tried...)
I would just like to make a plea for NOT putting stuff in
/Library/Application Support/Whatever without thinking really hard
about it... For example, don't just copy a bunch of stuff in there
that could just as easily be in the app wrapper... If you want to
support machine-wide optional stuff in that location, fine. But
applications that simply copy a bunch of stuff there for no good reason
(you know who you are) are annoying.
Same goes for ~/Library/Application Support/Whatever, but in this case,
copying or creating stuff there is more forgivable, if it is something
that makes sense. But consider alternatives to this location as well
(such as using NSUserDefaults for preferences). And note that if the
user will never change or add to the stuff you put there (directly or
indirectly), why are you putting it there? Keep unchanging stuff in
your app wrapper where it won't clutter up my home directory or system
install locations.
In my ~/Library/Application Support folder I have the following kinds
of stuff that seem OK
- Preference-type info that is too large to be in NSUserDefaults
(like PB workspace templates, LaunchBar configuration data, etc...)
- High score lists for games (although arguably this could be in
NSUserDefaults)
- License info (again, arguably could be in NSUserDefaults)
- AddressBook data (although I would rather recent Apple apps
allowed multiple "documents")
- Omniweb bookmarks, cookies, etc...
- Terminal startup file which I created
- Watson plugins (that were downloaded and installed separate from
Watson itself)
And I have the following stuff which seems like it should not be there
- A perl script for FinkCommander which presumably I would never
modify
- Lots of preference data that should clearly be in NSUserDefaults
Mike Ferris
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dave Yost <email@hidden>
Date: Sat Dec 14, 2002 9:16:21 PM US/Pacific
To: email@hidden
Subject: Re: "First Run" installation of Application support stuff?
At 9:09 AM -0500 2002-12-09, Jeff Disher wrote:
I wasn't referring to finding the folder. I was referring to
actually working with its contents. That is, checking that a folder
exists for your app (probably using the bundle identifiers like
preferences do), providing facilities for a generic storage
dictionary like the preferences, and the ability to get a path to
your application's folder in Application Support for storing things
that you need to write directly (if you are just copying a file, for
example). It could also handle the sort of synchronization that Dave
was referring to in his original post.
This isn't supposed be to be anything ground-breaking, just a small
object to make some of these tedious checks and serialization calls a
bit more convenient.
Actually I should have mentioned the issue of getting user
authentication for writing into /Library. Is there ready-to-go Java
code to wrap around stuff requiring administrator authentication?
That should be part of the library.
Dave
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