[ptx] Re: Renewing hugin OSX Distribution

[Ippei UKAI]

Hello Pablo and everyone,

On 2006-08-09, at 18:17, Pablo d'Angelo wrote:
> Pablo d'Angelo wrote:
>
>>> Suggested change to hugin itself
>>>
>>> In the preference, the paths to enblend and autopano should be the
>>> choice between "Search Default Locations" and "Specify custom path".
>>> On Linux, "default search locatins" would be the bin search  
>>> paths, and
>>> on Mac, would be "Application Support" folders of user and system
>>> levels, and inside the .app application bundle.
>>
>> Yes, this might clarify things for the user. Do you want to add this
>> yourself?
>
> Hmmm, actually what is the problem of the current approach? On  
> linux all the
> binaries are usually installed in the path anyway, so the current  
> situation
> is fine. On Windows, the installer sets the right paths during  
> installation.

The thing is, on OSX the user can freely move the application around.  
Consequently so does the path to enblend if it is inside the bundle.  
It could be one place, then could be the other on the next launch. It  
is very portable, and it is the operating system's job to find the  
files inside the bundle. (By the way, for bundled Resources, this  
system returns the file in best locale available according to the  
user's language priority. Very powerful.)

Probably autopano-sift should be outside the bundle, so the best is  
to search from any of "Application Support" folders. These folders  
are usually fixed. But in Carbon programming, we usually use Folder  
Manager's FSFindFolder function (http://developer.apple.com/ 
documentation/Carbon/Reference/Folder_Manager/Reference/ 
reference.html#//apple_ref/c/func/FSFindFolder) specifying the Type  
and Domain combinations. We can then search in say "Application  
Support" folders of down from User domain up to System domain. With  
this rather higher level function, paths to special folders like  
"Application Support" folder is usually decided on runtime. The path  
to the temporary folder too is actually supposed to use this.

The user (or more often application) will choose which domain the  
resource should be. For example, if the user did not have  
administrator privilege, the user would choose User domain to keep it  
private or Local domain to share with other users, or otherwise  
System domain using administrator rights (or even on Network domain  
if you administrate a network of computers). You can see this  
hierarchy if you install 3rd party fonts, for example.

To summarise, the locations of the resources should always be decided  
on runtime on Mac, not on installation nor at compilation. I thought  
the Linux executables are the same. By default, so enblend can be  
anywhere in the bin search path, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, or ~/bin  
even. Wouldn't it be better to have "Search Default Locations" and  
"User Custom..." options instead of one fixed location displayed?   
(Currenly HuginOSX searches the path specified in the preferences,  
then inside the bundle.)


> So the only configuration that needs improvements would be the OSX
> installation. I think the GUI should be left like it is, and the  
> path should
> include the main bundle directory where the enblend is shipped.  
> Then, by
> default the programs from the bundle are used. If the user would  
> like to use
> a different version of the helper programs, he can always enter the  
> full
> path for it. Am I missing something?

What if the user wants to go back to the enblend inside the bundle or  
the search path on Linux? Currently the user needs to enter a fake  
path where no file can be found on Mac, and I guess "`/bin/which  
enblend`" or something for Linux.

> Also, the user has to be able to specify the command, not just the  
> path to
> it! Otherwise people can't use any other programs, and would have  
> to rename
> smartblend.exe to enblend.exe and so on, which is confusing...

That's when people would use "Custom" option to specify the path to  
the enblend-compatible they wants to use.

Ippei

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