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Re: [udig-devel] A second Release candidate

This is really hard because we don't have any macs. I had one long enough to get it going. I am now just exporting from linux using the delta pack. It is supposed to work :-P . I'll need help from the community until I can convince the refractions guys to buy me a Mac to develop on.

We have some of these question answered on this mailing list so try searching it for answers on how to install it.

I'll try to get it up on the WIKI as soon as possible. I also want to create a friendly install for mac like we have for windows. Or at least the correct .app file.

Jesse

William K wrote:

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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