T10112: KDEInstallDirs on Mac

[René J . V . Bertin]

rjvbb added a comment.


  A more complete draft:
  F6442989: patch-mac-installdirs.diff 

TASK DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/T10112

To: rjvbb
Cc: yurikoles, kde-mac, #kde_applications, #frameworks, #build_system

T10112: KDEInstallDirs on Mac

[René J . V . Bertin]

rjvbb added a comment.


  You will notice that I plan to maintain an option to disable the 
Apple-specific behaviour for anyone who depends on the current behaviour (that 
includes me, but your script would also continue to work). Cf. the 
`APPLE_FORCE_X11` option
  
  A priori /Library/Application Support is admin-writable and I cannot really 
conceive that anyone using (managing) a MacPorts, Fink or HomeBrew installtion 
would NOT have an admin account. But then I've been tweaking permissions since 
10.2 and have only some outdated experience with Fink besides my intimate 
knowledge of MacPorts (and those both require root permissions to install 
packages).

TASK DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/T10112

To: rjvbb
Cc: yurikoles, kde-mac, #kde_applications, #frameworks, #build_system

T10112: KDEInstallDirs on Mac

[Yurii Kolesnykov]

yurikoles added a comment.


/Library/Application Support/kf5
  
  This will be incompatible with homebrew packages 
, since they are built inside sandbox 
and own prefix.
  
  I had created a shell script 
 that 
sets up needed symlinks, it needs to be run manually.
  
  I think If this patch will be accepted, we will end up with install errors 
due to sandbox limitation, or my script will require a sudo, because 
`/Library/Application Support/` is not writable by arbitrary users.

TASK DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/T10112

To: rjvbb, yurikoles
Cc: yurikoles, kde-mac, #kde_applications, #frameworks, #build_system

T10112: KDEInstallDirs on Mac

[René J . V . Bertin]

rjvbb created this task.
rjvbb added a project: Build System.

TASK DESCRIPTION
  (I hope this is the better place to discuss something that should be done 
than a WIP diff review...)
  
  There is a discrepancy under the Mac's OS (and unpatched Qt) between the 
install locations expected in the code and the install locations used by the 
build system. The former depend on QStandardPaths for the most part while the 
latter are hardcoded and depend on the install prefix, assuming an 
XDG-compatible installation layout.
  
  As a result several developers have come up with workarounds. I myself have 
developed a patch for QStandardPaths allowing to make it return XDG-compatible 
locations while still supporting native locations (based on a compile-time 
decision using preprocessor tokens). This is IMHO the preferred solution for 
package managers that aim to install everything into a dedicated prefix, like 
MacPorts, Fink and HomeBrew.
  Others have designed solutions to build standalone app bundles in order to 
mimick the simple installer-less way of distributing software that is possible 
on Mac.
  
  I've been thinking of better ways to get things installed where the running 
software will be looking for it. Initially I thought that a simple wrapper 
around QStandardPaths could be written so that cmake can simply look up the 
actual locations. After going over `KDEInstallDirs.cmake` I'm no longer certain 
if that's feasible, and there might be bootstrap issues I'm not aware of.
  
  I notice though that almost all locations in KDEInstallDirs are based on the 
`DATAROOTDIR` path. Indeed, a quick test with the patched DrKonqi (from D4929 
) and
  
if (WIN32)
_define_relative(DATAROOTDIR BINDIR "data"
"read-only architecture-independent data root"
SHARE_INSTALL_PREFIX)
elseif(APPLE AND NOT APPLE_FORCE_INSTALL_PREFIX)
_define_absolute(DATAROOTDIR "/Library/Application Support"
"read-only architecture-independent data root")
else()
_define_absolute(DATAROOTDIR "share"
"read-only architecture-independent data root"
SHARE_INSTALL_PREFIX)
endif()
  
  gave an install that worked just as well as with my patched Qt and 
`APPLE_FORCE_INSTALL_PREFIX=ON` or `APPLE_FORCE_INSTALL_PREFIX=OFF`. 
(APPLE_FORCE_INSTALL_PREFIX could also be called APPLE_FORCE_UNIX_DIRS or even 
APPLE_FORCE_UNIX_STANDARDS as a generic switch usable elsewhere too).
  
  There are a few variables though for which I don't know if this is the right 
thing (and I might be missing others):
  
  - KDE_INSTALL_APPDIR: this is one where querying QStandardPaths would give an 
undesirable result (/Applications). But in general this might have to be kept 
at $SHARE_INSTALL_PREFIX/applications so that any non-KDE5 XDG-compliant 
software the user might have installed in $PREFIX will be able to interact as 
expected with KDE software
  - KDE_INSTALL_MANDIR: Apple manpages are installed in standard Unix locations
  - KDE_INSTALL_DBUS* : these are presumable used by KDE AND the D-Bus daemon 
which is typically installed through MacPorts, Fink or HomeBrew (with $PREFIX 
one of /opt/local, /sw or /usr/local).
  
  Additional interrogation:
  
  - Can we set `DATAROOTDIR=/Library/Application Support/KDE` so that 
everything remains nicely bundled? I notice that Qt tend to use 
`/Library/Application Support/QtProject` for its stuff but can we be certain 
that the extra path component won't break any lookups?
  
  I'd like to address this so that it becomes possible to do quick builds and 
installs KDE projects against a stock Qt on Mac in a way that's as similar as 
possible to how it's done on other Unix versions. It could be simpler than I 
thought but I'd need some feedback to avoid introducing regressions or cause 
too much breakage of the standalone-appbundle approaches designed by others 
(setting `APPLE_FORCE_INSTALL_PREFIX=ON` should ensure that?).

TASK DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/T10112

To: rjvbb
Cc: #kde_applications, #frameworks, #build_system, rjvbb

T10112: KDEInstallDirs on Mac

[René J . V . Bertin]

rjvbb added a comment.


  > Can we set DATAROOTDIR=/Library/Application Support/KDE so that everything 
remains nicely bundled?
  
  Sadly not without patching any code, apparently.
  
  We'll also need something like this I think:
  
_define_relative(DATADIR DATAROOTDIR ""
"read-only architecture-independent data"
DATA_INSTALL_DIR)
if(APPLE AND NOT APPLE_FORCE_INSTALL_PREFIX)
_define_non_cache(DATADIR_KF5 "/Library/Application Support/kf5")
else()
_define_non_cache(DATADIR_KF5 "${CMAKE_INSTALL_DATADIR}/kf5")
endif()
if(NOT KDE_INSTALL_DIRS_NO_DEPRECATED)
set(KF5_DATA_INSTALL_DIR "${CMAKE_INSTALL_DATADIR_KF5}")
endif()

TASK DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/T10112

To: rjvbb
Cc: kde-mac, #kde_applications, #frameworks, #build_system