I've been looking forward to the Mac OS X release since seeing udig
at OSG. As far as a simple install-and-go goes, no go. From a *Mac*
user perspective:
1. lack of documentation outside the in-application documentation.
What is needed? How to set up the environment so it will run?
Hopefully there will be something in the final 1.0.1 release.
Only from seeing a message in the archives did I see that I must
install Java 5. And then it still defaults to 1.4. I tried putting
the headless option in the Info.plist for the udig.app package (that
looked like the right place for CLI startup options), but that didn't
help (tried putting it in udig.ini also), nor did linking /Library/
Java/Home to the Java 5 framework. I see that /usr/bin/java is still
linked to 1.4, so Java 5 would have to run with a full path to the
framework.
Then there's the Java Preferences that comes with Java 5 - supposedly
you select which version to use for apps and web applets. Setting
Java 5 here didn't help.
From the Apple documentation for it, a developer is supposed to be
able to specify a Java version so the user doesn't have to mess
around with JAVAHOME or other tricks. Your average Mac user doesn't
care how the application (one with a GUI) is made (C, java,
AppleScript), just that it runs, so messing around with environment
variables is going to put people off.
I decided to link /usr/bin/java to Java 5. Finally udig starts. But
this can't be the right way to do it.
2. Log files should go somewhere guaranteed to be user-writable. If
udig is installed by an admin in /Applications with normal app
permissions (only admin-writable), a non-admin user that runs udig
can't create logs. ~/Library/Logs/udig/ would be a good place.
I noticed another temporary file created in the udig folder when
trying to start udig (it flashes by a bit fast, but it's something
like 'writable.....'). This, and any other temp and configuration/
preference files created in the application folder can also have
permissions issues. How about /tmp for temporary files and ~/Library/
Preferences for application prefs (udig.ini?)?
3. Will there be an icon for udig.app? Now that I got it running, I
see that in the Dock there is a udig icon, but the udig.app package
should have that icon also.
4. When it's running, it's called 'java', not udig. More Mac OS X
.app packaging stuff to take care of.
I hope I didn't come off too negative about this. I really want to
see this working on Mac OS X.
-----
William Kyngesburye <kyngchaos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
http://www.kyngchaos.com/
First Pogril: Why is life like sticking your head in a bucket filled
with hyena offal?
Second Pogril: I don't know. Why IS life like sticking your head in
a bucket filled with hyena offal?
First Pogril: I don't know either. Wretched, isn't it?
-HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig)
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