Re: What is the rationale behind keeping preferences in one place and "Application Support" files in another?
Re: What is the rationale behind keeping preferences in one place and "Application Support" files in another?
- Subject: Re: What is the rationale behind keeping preferences in one place and "Application Support" files in another?
- From: "I. Savant" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 14:40:33 -0500
Andrei:
I'll take the opportunity to weigh in (argument notwithstanding).
First, yes, you should use the existing system for preferences.
As I understand the Application Support folder, your app *should*
survive its destruction. One good use is in illustrated in the
following example: Consider an application that works with
'templates' (in file form) that the user can change. The app would
conceivably have some built-in templates that ship with it. These
should originally be located in the app bundle. Upon launch, the app
should check if its Application Support folder exists (and the
template files are present). If not, it should **copy** them from the
bundle into the support folder. The user from that point on would be
editing the *copies*, not the original. This makes it easy to both
provide a "reset templates to default" function (always handy) and
allows editing of the template files (assuming it's the *user's* app
support files) since the app bundle should not be assumed writable.
If the files are ever missing or the whole support folder is gone, it
can be recreated.
If I've left anything out or there are better examples, all are
welcomed to enlighten. :-)
--
I.S.
On Dec 8, 2005, at 2:24 PM, Andrei Tchijov wrote:
Hamish,
Thanks for your response. Before you mentioned plugins, I thought
for myself that "good application" should survive loss of
"Application Support" folder and just act as if it was just freshly
installed. Now if we introduce plugins into the picture, then we
might end up with situation when "preferences" depend on such
plugins and then loss of "Application Support" folder could be
quite damaging. But then I guess "good application" should be ready
to deal with "corrupted" preferences.
Andrei
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