Locating Applications Folder

[S. Gopu Pillai]

Hi,
I am writing an application in which I need to install it in
Applications Folder. The problem is, In Jaguar the Applications Folder
can be renamed as easily as any other folder(With admin Login). Mac OS
10.1 does not allow renaming of Applications folder. But through
terminal, logging in as root user one can rename it.
For locating the Applications folder I am using
FindFolder(). I am passing 'kLocalDomain' as the first parameter and
'kApplicationsFolderType' as the second parameter. But after renaming
applications folder, this API failed to detect Applications folder.
This seems to be limitation of the API. Please help.

...gopu

[Patrick Stadelmann]

In article <19191854.0308210753.1a9e38e3@posting.google.com >,
[email]sgopupillai@yahoo.com[/email] (S. Gopu Pillai) wrote:

> Hi,
> I am writing an application in which I need to install it in
> Applications Folder. The problem is, In Jaguar the Applications Folder
> can be renamed as easily as any other folder(With admin Login). Mac OS
> 10.1 does not allow renaming of Applications folder. But through
> terminal, logging in as root user one can rename it.

Then it won't be recognized as the Application folder anymore. Mac OS X
expects it to be /Applications. On foreign systems, the name is
translated only when it's displayed, the actual folder name does not
change.

> For locating the Applications folder I am using
> FindFolder(). I am passing 'kLocalDomain' as the first parameter and
> 'kApplicationsFolderType' as the second parameter. But after renaming
> applications folder, this API failed to detect Applications folder.

Because apart from it's name and location, it has no way of finding it !

> This seems to be limitation of the API. Please help.

For now, it is safe to assume that the folder is /Applications. Apple's
own installer makes that assumption, and breaks if the folder is moved
or renamed.

Patrick
--
Patrick Stadelmann <Patrick.Stadelmann@unine.ch>

[David C. Stone]

In article <19191854.0308210753.1a9e38e3@posting.google.com >, S. Gopu
Pillai <sgopupillai@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> I am writing an application in which I need to install it in
> Applications Folder. The problem is, In Jaguar the Applications Folder
> can be renamed as easily as any other folder(With admin Login). Mac OS
> 10.1 does not allow renaming of Applications folder. But through
> terminal, logging in as root user one can rename it.
> For locating the Applications folder I am using
> FindFolder(). I am passing 'kLocalDomain' as the first parameter and
> 'kApplicationsFolderType' as the second parameter. But after renaming
> applications folder, this API failed to detect Applications folder.
> This seems to be limitation of the API. Please help.

I'm tempted to say that anyone who renames the Applications folder,
deserves whatever they get, and it shouldn't be your problem.

Since someone is likely not only to do this, but also complain
at software developers when things go "blurgh!", how about this:

In the installer: if the FindFolder call returns an error, popup a
dialog asking where the user wants to do the installation.

In your app: IIRC there are other constants/means to obtain the
directory within which your application resides so that you can
check this in your startup routine, should it be necessary for
your application to know this (maybe to find associated files etc)

HTH,

Dave Stone

[Doc O'Leary]

In article <19191854.0308210753.1a9e38e3@posting.google.com >,
[email]sgopupillai@yahoo.com[/email] (S. Gopu Pillai) wrote:

> I am writing an application in which I need to install it in
> Applications Folder.

You have no such need. It is very un-Mac-like to force an app into a
particular folder in order to run. The only apps I have in
/Applications are ones that should have been properly stored in the
/System domain root (i.e., apps supplied by Apple). If your app doesn't
run from any directory the user chooses to put it in (including the disk
image it comes on) then you haven't written it right.