Move FontForge.app to /Applications?

[davelab6]

FontForge.app needs to be moved to /Applications to run; when it is installed with cask and first run, it pops up a CocoaDialog message asking the user to do this, and then opens the pwd of the app's current location. It would be better for the cask script to do this directly.

A symlink will not work.

Is that allowed?

cc @DomT4

[DomT4]

Afraid I have no control over the Cask's choices. It's possible to do, easily, but I don't know how it'll square with the Cask removal/installation process.

Usually Homebrew will not override a target that already exists, which would make reinstalls or future updates break without removing the application first (And we've moving towards a sandbox that will actively prevent formulae installing/removing things in $HOME and such); I don't know about the Cask.

Their zap :delete implementation is nifty and I suspect capable of handling that, but I don't know their boundaries on what they find acceptable.

There's an ongoing discussion on this sort of topic in #3888.

[vitorgalvao]

To be clear, the user has to move it manually, FontForge won’t offer to do it, correct?

[davelab6]

To be clear, the user has to move it manually, FontForge won’t offer to do it, correct?

Yes, at the moment. Is it possible for FontForge to do itself on first run?

In the next release there will be a DMG, so cask will have to move the app out of the dmg, and thus that could be a good moment to do this.

cc @larsenwork

[vitorgalvao]

Is it possible for FontForge to do itself on first run?

Yes, multiple apps do it. It isn’t related to us but the app itself, though.

In the next release there will be a DMG, so cask will have to move the app out of the dmg, and thus that could be a good moment to do this.

No, not really. The container it is in has nothing to do with it. The issue is deeper than that, and I’ll start a needed discussion on that soon.

[davelab6]

Okay cool - can you name any of those apps that are libre licensed so we can take a look? :)

[vitorgalvao]

Check casks with suppress_move_to_applications. It’s a very common technique, and the message usually looks like this.

[larsenwork]

@davelab6 not sure how this is related to the dmg that we'll use once we get the building working again? The new installer in the dmg already copies FontForge.app to /Applications

[davelab6]

On 10 July 2015 at 12:48, Andreas Larsen notifications@github.com wrote:

The new installer in the dmg already copies FontForge.app to /Applications

The user has to do that by hand though, right?

[larsenwork]

No, double click on the installer that automatically copies ff to /app

[davelab6]

Will the installer run okay via cask?

[larsenwork]

dunno - what is cask used for (I've never used it)?

[jawshooah]

Is it a .pkg installer? If so, then yes, Cask can handle that just fine.

[vitorgalvao]

@jawshooah Testing it now, it’s an app that does something on first launch. It also requires X11, so we need to add that dependency.

@larsenwork Command-line package manager for GUI apps.

[jawshooah]

@vitorgalvao Right, but from the discussion above it sounded like they were changing the installer format. Is that the case, @davelab6, @larsenwork?

[n370]

[vitorgalvao]

Being tracked in #12858.

Will no longer be an issue after #13201.

[tjnycum]

FontForge.app needs to be moved to /Applications to run

Why is that? That seems like rather bad behavior.

[scribblemaniac]

@tjnycum Nobody here developed the application, so nobody here could possibly answer your question.

[tjnycum]

@scribblemaniac: davelab6, the OP and person whom I was quoting, seems to be heavily involved in that project.

[scribblemaniac]

Yes sorry, my bad.

[davelab6]

@tjnycum Fontforge is 100% bad behaviour. It is a 15 year old C application with its own python, and it is brimming with magic to make it run on Mac OS X. One of the consequences is hardcoded paths that begin /Applications/FontForge.app/...

If you want to fix it, you are welcome, but you'll be working full time for a year.

[davelab6]

they were changing the installer format

Believe it when you see it :)

[n370]

Thanks @vitorgalvao. I'll be following the discussion on #12858 and #13201. Good luck.