kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Mark Roszko <mark.roszko@xxxxxxxxx>]

Speaking of paths, there's invalid default paths(%PROGRAM
FILES%/KiCad) being used for Save and Open dialogs thoroughout KiCad
which need to be changed to the user's document folder. Wayne said he
was working on it awhile ago but its something to fix.

On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 6:03 AM, Brian Sidebotham
<brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> GetExecutablePath() has a fallback which is poor but not too
> unreasonable: https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/src/common/stdpbase.cpp#L67
>
> For Linux it grabs /proc/self/exe which seems reasonable(ish):
> https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/src/unix/stdpaths.cpp#L120
>
> For Windows it uses the Module path which is fine:
> https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/src/msw/stdpaths.cpp#L343
> https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/include/wx/msw/private.h#L894
>
> For OSX the code looks ok, though I can't test it at all:
> https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/src/osx/core/stdpaths_cf.cpp#L142
>
> The only problem I see if the BSD range of OS, which is basically
> where /proc/self/exe is not available because that will fall back to
> the base implementation. Although the base implementation is not too
> bad either. We could do a pull request for wxWidgets to fix up
> GetExecutablePath() for those by testing for /proc/curproc/exe and
> /proc/curproc/file and using if one exists - that should cover most of
> the BSD range better.
>
> I think GetExecutablePath() is accurate enough for us to use without
> problem. It's so common to tie installed files relative the executable
> path it's virtually standard for me. This means we can run sandboxed
> versions, i.e. without having to have a global config file which is
> awkward when you're trying to test different things at once. Otherwise
> a /etc/kicad.conf would be perfect, but has no equivalent on Windows.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Brian.
>
> On 18 September 2015 at 00:40, Cirilo Bernardo
> <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 18, 2015 at 8:20 AM, Brian Sidebotham
>> <brian.sidebotham@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> As mentioned in the bug report here
>>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/kicad/4.0/+bug/1496049 there's a problem
>>> with paths on the Windows 4.0.0-RC1.
>>>
>>> So far the paths that don't work:
>>>
>>>     (1) Searching for help files fails
>>>     (2) Default paths in the "Path configuration" dialog all point to
>>> places in c:\msys64\mingw64, etc.
>>>     (3) Python footprint wizards don't load
>>>
>>> and probably more. Needless to say, the KiCad experience out of the
>>> box because of this is very poor.
>>>
>>> We need to fix up the path search which started with the help in the
>>> bug report. The current consensus is to have (yet another) env var
>>> called something like KIHELP which can default on Windows to the
>>> literal string "${KICAD}\share\doc\kicad\help" which alleviates the
>>> previous problem of trying to guess the install path at compile time
>>> which is clearly flawed.
>>>
>>
>> There are problems for sure but I don't believe in adding yet another
>> env var if it can be helped, but this may be a complex enough issue that
>> an env var would be the best option for the release. On MSWin documents
>> and such should go into an appropriate one of MSWin's Known Folders -
>> the question then is can we access these folder names via some library
>> in MSys/MinGW?
>>
>>
>>> My personal preference would have just to have checked
>>> "BINDIR\..\share\doc\kicad\help" where BINDIR is gathered from
>>> ::wxStandardPaths::Get().GetExecutablePath();
>>>
>>
>> I have my doubts here; there are too many ways that GetExecutablePath()
>> can give you the wrong result - certainly on *NIX there is no guarantee
>> what result you will get (but on Linux there are tricks to get it right -
>> assuming wxWidgets has a good implementation), but I'm not so sure of
>> the behavior on MSWin. Short story: inspect the wx implementation
>> before believing the results.
>>
>>>
>>> However, the decision appears to be to add another configurable path.
>>>
>>> While adding the new KIHELP env var solves part of the problem, the
>>> Windows installer should be updated to set the KICAD env var to the
>>> chosen install path while installing. et. voila, paths fixed.
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>>
>>> Brian.
>>>
>>
>>  I think a well-known path is preferable to yet another configurable path;
>> this is true for all platforms. In my 3D refactoring branch there is some
>> code which attempts to find a plugins directory using a number of
>> known paths. I think for all items specifically associated with the
>> kicad install, known paths should be used. For other items like
>> 3D models some user configuration should be supported (though
>> any 3D models installed by a kicad installer should be put into a
>> known path).
>>
>> - Cirilo
>
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-- 
Mark