Re: Octave.app 4.4.0 RC1 available for testing

[Andrew Janke]

> I wish I had time to return to supporting Octave. I am appreciative of each of 
> your efforts.

Thank you!

> I don’t think there is a proper solution for supporting oct-files with 
> different app-bundles. Maybe the equivalent of a usr/local/bin could be added 
> to the app to allow oct-files to be installed within the bundle? (not ideal, 
> but it would allow different apps to coexist and run oct-files of the same 
> name).

That sounds similar to what we're doing for packages. We are re-pointing 
"pkg prefix" at '~/Library/Application 
Support/Octave.app/<version>/pkg', so there's a separate dedicated 
installation location for each version of Octave.app. (And pkg takes 
care of installing octfiles to different architecture-specific subdirs 
under each package.)

You want these under ~/Library/Application Support/<app> instead of the 
actual app bundle, to avoid breaking app bundle signing, and to fit in 
with OS X's file hierarchy conventions.

This would need Octave to add a notion of a default installation 
location for octfiles, and make it configurable. Right now, they're just 
dropped in the same directory as their source file, and it is up to the 
user to manage their installation and addition to the Octave path.

(But then again, that's basically what pkg does, right, with some 
additional infrastructure?)

I personally don't think this is a high priority, since oct files and 
multiple Octave installs are a more advanced use case, and 
https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/index.php?53627 will take care of some of 
the portability issues. I'd prefer to just wait and see what happens 
there before trying to introduce other mechanisms to handle this.

Cheers,
Andrew