On 04/09/2013 15:48, Steve Stockman wrote:
I don't think software versus data is Greg's point here. The point is that your software requires certain files to exist within a user's home directory, which might be unavailable or even non-existent at install time. The software doesn't require the samples. If anything the samples require the software and I think we did have a check in PackageMaker for this so I will look into whether this is possible with Packages.
If the files are never to be modified after installation, rather than have them in a home directory, just keep them within the application bundle itself or somewhere within "/Library/Application Support". The files can be modified. If you are installing initial/default forms of files that may be modified as the software runs, the normal way to accomplish this is: 1. Install the initial or default form of the data in a known location, such as within your application bundle or somewhere within "/Library/Application Support". If we are talking about multiple files, it would probably be handy to install a single tar or zip archive. 2. When your app or agent launches, it checks the current user's home directory for the presence of those files, and copies them there if they do not already exist. This can either be done immediately at startup, or lazily as the files are actually needed. This is something we've done in the past with our Windows software but have moved away from as a solution. Those steps accomplish two things: 1. It provides for users whose home directories would not be found by the installer. Is it common for the users home directory not to be found by the installer? Would my postflight script I previously employed suffer similar problems and how would the application find it when the installer and the script can't? 2. It prevents a subsequent version of your installer from overwriting files that have already been modified within a home directory without having to go through any complex version checking.
I think I made sure my postflight script did not overwrite modified files but I will certainly check that the installer is not doing this and if it is then this is potentially not an option. Steve Stockman Software Architect/Technical Director Consumer Products - Macintosh Symantec Corporation http://www.symantec.com http://www.symantec.com/ -----Original Message----- From: James Pritchard mailto:james@emnetsoftware.com Date: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 9:28 AM To: Greg Neagle mailto:greg.neagle@disneyanimation.com Cc: mailto:installer-dev@lists.apple.com mailto:installer-dev@lists.apple.com Subject: Re: Installing to users Home folder using Packages
It's not software we install to the users home folder but additional sample files.
On 04/09/2013 15:21, Greg Neagle wrote:
Why do you need to do this?
I would not want to use/support your software in an enterprise environment where:
1) There may be multiple user accounts on a machine 2) User accounts might come from a directory service and therefore have no "footprint" on a machine when your software is installed. 3) The user installing your software might be a site administrator, and not the user who will be using your software. 4) The software might be installed by an automated process and there might be no user logged in at all at the time of install. 5) A machine might be set up and configured _before_ the main user's account is created; the main user's account may not even exist at the time of the installation of your software.
Software should not _require_ the installation of anything in a user's home directory.
-Greg
On Sep 4, 2013, at 3:32 AM, James Pritchard mailto:james@emnetsoftware.com wrote:
Up until now we've been using PackageMaker to put together our installs but looking to make a change to use Packages for our next software release.
An issue we had using PackageMaker was with installing to the users Home folder. Our solution was to install to the /tmp folder and then copy the files across in a post flight script. Can anyone tell me if there a way of installing to the Home folder in Packages, or should I just carry on using my existing post flight script.
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