[Pythonmac-SIG] py2app Enforces Directory Structure? (original) (raw)

Bob Ippolito bob at redivi.com
Wed Dec 22 06:20:33 CET 2004

On Dec 21, 2004, at 11:39 PM, Erik Westra wrote:

I don't need to include anything else in the application, as the system will store the contents of the "data" and other directories outside of the application bundle itself.

Don't do that. That's bad. Include the data and any other dependencies inside the application. Having them external and using an installer is not the Mac way to do things and I'm not going to help you do it. There was a similar discussion a while ago (weeks?) and I'm not going to have it again, so search the archives and argue with the past if you feel strongly in the other direction :) I agree that this isn't something worth arguing about (and I wouldn't expect you to help me do it, either!), but I just have one comment on this issue: in the system I'm porting to the Mac, the "data" might consist of 300+ megabytes of information held in an embedded SQLite database, along with hundreds of configuration files and dynamically-loaded Python modules (downloaded automatically from a web site as they are required). Our system is pretty darned complicated, and while I agree that it's not the Mac way of doing things, the architecture works well and our users really don't care much about the internal organisation. This isn't an application designed for mass distribution, so issues like this really aren't all that important to us. Anyway, topic closed. I certainly don't want to get into an argument about this...

I just wanted to mention that there are designated places to put files
like that, and "relative to wherever the application might be" is Not
That Place. See the "Where To Put Application Files" section of The Mac OS X File System__.

.. __:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/ BPFileSystem/index.html

-bob

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