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Re: My app breaks when moved while running
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Re: My app breaks when moved while running


  • Subject: Re: My app breaks when moved while running
  • From: Gregory Weston <email@hidden>
  • Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 07:42:37 -0500

Phil wrote:

I could be mistaken but I don't think there's a good mechanism to do
this.  You should probably file a bug against the Finder for allowing
the user to do this without at least warning them that they should
quit the application before moving/renaming it (but even this would
still only be a partial solution: what if the user renamed a directory
in the path to the executable or moved their apps directory somewhere
else while running?)  It seems like it would be a significant amount
of effort, both in the Apple frameworks and for app developers, to
keep a non-trivial application functioning properly to being moved/
renamed while running vs. what percentage of users would ever attempt
to do this even once.

While the raw effort *is* probably significant, the solution seems fairly straightforward. Instead of relying on cached paths (or whatever static structure is underlying these problems), the bundle mechanisms could be caching aliases. Obviously there's not a widespread habit among users of moving a running app, but it's something that historically didn't inherently break anything. From a little experimentation, it seems like there's no way to *not* break a package-style app by moving it; among the "important doodads" that can't be reliably retrieved are the nib files that would define other windows, views, etc.


What I'd be worried about are UIElement-type apps. The things that users tend to leave running over their entire session, some of which do have discrete Finder icons (rather than being resources of a prefPane or the like).

Actually, there *is* a workaround. Cache an alias to the main bundle at launch time, and then go out of your way to never rely (explicitly or implicitly) on the main bundle again. Instead, create a bundle for the resolved alias any time you need to do anything.

G
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