Re: Associating bundle directories with app

[David Chisnall]

Hi Richard,

On 20 Jan 2011, at 15:02, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:

> Yes.  It has to be done on a per-user basis, since the locations that 
> applications/services live in vary from user to user.


I'm not sure I understand this argument.  Isn't this the same as allowing 
defaults to be set in GNUstep.conf (e.g. so the administrator can set the 
default theme for all users)?  Per-user defaults override systemwide defaults 
in both cases.  If an application is installed by the system administrator, 
then I would expect it to be the default application for all users, unless they 
have explicitly provided an alternative setting.

The reason for not automatically generating these settings on OS X[1] is 
security - you don't want a user clicking on some link, getting a .app bundle, 
and finding that it's a trojan that installs itself as a the default file 
handler for all of your file types.  If the system administrator is performing 
the installation, then this does not apply; if root is installing trojans then 
you have bigger problems than GNUstep's file associations.

One of the issues that is always raised with regard to GNUstep adoption is the 
quality of GNUstep packagers, and if we can make life easier for packagers then 
this seems like a good thing to do...

David

[1] OS X does generate them automatically now, but it prompts you the first 
time the app is run.

-- Sent from my PDP-11