kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Jean-Paul Louis <louijp@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wayne,

OS X is a strange beast.
Apps are installed in more than one place.
/usr/local/ is not visible from the finder, but /opt/local/ is.
When I got a package prebuilt, it was installed in /Applications/KiCad/, which was fine.

When I build from source with minimum interaction (cake, make, make install),
/demos and /templates ends-up in /usr/local/share/kicad/.

kicad is in several places

Jean-Pauls-MacBook-Pro:kicad jean-paullouis$ sudo find / -name kicad
Password:
/Applications/KiCad/kicad.app/Contents/MacOS/kicad
...
/usr/local/bin/kicad.app/Contents/MacOS/kicad
/usr/local/lib/kicad
/usr/local/share/doc/kicad
/usr/local/share/kicad

I am trying to find a way to have all the *.app under the /Applications/KiCad/,
and all the data under the home directory, so I can update/upgrade without touching the data.
~/Documents/ would be acceptable, I would prefer ~/Data/.
Github is OK for storage, but local storage is better for efficiency/load.

What is the best route to do just that?

Regards,
Jean-Paul (AC9GH)



On Mar 14, 2014, at 7:08 PM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 3/14/2014 5:32 PM, Marco Serantoni wrote:
>> 
>> On 14/mar/2014, at 20:00, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> The idea of keeping Kicad libs in Github is great, but if the
>>>> first-time-ever user has to set it up in some system config files or run
>>>> bash scripts (think of Windows users!), it will ruin his experience
>>>> (sorry for sounding Steve Jobs-ish...). Eagle, DesignSpark and Altium
>>>> have libraries working out-of-the box. Why we shouldn't?
>>>> 
>>>> My proposal is add a configuration window (see attachment) that appears
>>>> the first time freshly installed Kicad is launched. What do you think of
>>>> this approach?
>>> 
>>> Hey Tom,
>>> 
>>> Yes I agree that it should just work and it should.  The problem is not
>>> in the code AFAICT.  The problem appears to be in the location where the
>>> default fp_lib_table file is installed on OSX.  When either CvPcb or
>>> Pcbnew are run for the first time without a define fp_lib_table file in
>>> the user's platform dependent home folder, an attempt is made to copy
>>> the default fp_lib_table file to the user's home folder.  On Linux the
>>> default fp_lib_table file is stored in /usr/share/kicad/template and
>>> copied to ~/.  If the default file cannot be found, then there is no
>>> choice but to create an empty fp_lib_table file which is what appears to
>>> be happening on OSX.  The path(s) searched for the default fp_lib_table
>>> are defined in EDA_APP::FindLibraryPath().  If the path that the OSX
>>> installer is placing the default fp_lib_table is not in the list of
>>> paths, then that is the problem or there is potentially a file
>>> permission problem preventing the file from being copied.  This used to
>>> work fine on both Windows and Linux so if no one changed it, it should
>>> still work.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Wayne the problem is not the code and this is CLEAR.
>> The problem is that there isn’t an installer to install programs under OSX, that can be placed by the user anywhere under /Applications directory.
>> The other issue is that the /Applications directory is not supposed to guest “support files”, so the combination of the two things doesn’t allow me to hardcode it on FindLibraryPath.
>> I’ve also tried to think an arrangement on that, but interacting with Dick on ticket  #1267911, i’ve understood with error that EDA_APP is gone, letting me wait Kiway.
>> </code>
> 
> Where do the KiCad template files get installed on OSX when you install
> KiCad using the OSX bundle?  That is where the the path should point to
> when attempting to copy the default fp_lib_table file to the users home
> folder.  I would prefer not use EDA_APP::FindLibraryPath() but rather
> wxStandardPaths::GetDataDir() with the appropriate subfolders added so
> this works out to be:
> 
> Windows: path_to_kicad_binary/../share/templates
> Linux: prefix/share/kicad/templates
> OSX: kicad.app/Contents/SharedSupport/templates
> 
> This is valid for windows and linux.  Is this not valid for OSX or are
> you saying that you cannot copy a file from the application install
> folder to the user's home folder?  I really am confused because I
> thought OSX was essentially BSD which should be posix compliant.
> 
>> 
>> <user_interaction>
>> The limit of the previous approach is that the developer/packager choose for the user if use the old libraries or the GitHub approach, not letting the user choose what is better for him.
>> Probably the “startup configuration window/wizard” could be a mayor enhancement for the user and solve also the other issue in a single move.
>> This was also the spirit that I had when the 31/12/2013 on the ML i’ve asked a button to “fill in” the table starting from the old legacy library path.
>> 
>> 
>> —
>> Marco
>> 
> 
> 
> 
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