Lion problem report and fix

[Scott Morrow]

In the case of a "splash screen" application where the executable "appears" to have the ability to update itself by deleting the old stack files containing the UI / logic and downloading and running new stack file(s), where would be the best place to put the UI / Logic files? I had come to the conclusion that the user's Application Support  folder was best, since a user with a managed account could still update the application without the need of a system admin.

Scott Morrow

Elementary Software
(Now with 20% less chalk dust!)
web       http://elementarysoftware.com/
email     scott at elementarysoftware.com
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On Jul 22, 2011, at 6:55 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
<snip>

> Application Support: Apple says, "These are the files that your
>              application creates and manages on behalf of the user
>              and can include files that contain user data."
> 
> The use of App Support is rather loosely defined, its distinction from Preferences not exactly clear.  Given that many users are comfortable ditching the prefs for an app, I would use App Support for those files which are more central to the app than preferences, need to be writable, and are not documents.  For example, an RSS reader might puts its URL DB and cache in there.
> 
> But I must admit I've never yet had a need for it.  It's rather specialized; the subset of things that aren't essential to running the app (which should be in the bundle) and aren't user-specific settings (which should be in Prefs) is slim.
<snip/>