Re: Associating bundle directories with app

[Niels Grewe]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 10:08:55AM +0100, Sebastian Reitenbach wrote:
> With the make_services available right_now, it has to be run as the user, 
> since the cache used is stored in the users GNUstep directory in the 
> .GNUstepServices file.
> 
> Maybe it would make sense to have a global services cache, in some shared 
> accessible directory. So for me as a packager, I could run make_services as a 
> post (un)install script, when installing a package. So it would update the 
> services database everytime a gnustep application is (un)installed.

I think it would be a good idea to have a kind of system wide (or per
installation domain?) mechanism for storing settings. This probably
should not only include the .GNUstepServices and .GNUStepAppList files
but also the user-defaults database. If I'm not mistaken, people are
routinely having trouble to set the right NSFont for their backend
because the packager cannot do it for them.

Also, it is worth noting that there is a freedesktop.org spec
[0] for associating mime-types with applications. Maybe we should
consider supporting that as well [1] for people who occasionally use GNUstep
applications on their whatever-is-considered-fancy-this-week desktop. 

> Since make_services always accounts all available applications, for me it 
> would make sense to remove the burden to remember to run make_services, from 
> each user of the system, but move it to the admin/packager...
> 
> But maybe I miss sth. here...?

Well, people might want to install applications and services in their
user domain so it kinda makes sense to run it automagically for the
user.

Cheers,

Niels

[0] http://standards.freedesktop.org/shared-mime-info-spec/latest/

[1] I'd be willing to look into that if there is sufficient interest.