[sword-devel] New website - installation instructions

[Matthew Talbert]

>> $HOME/Library/Application Support/sword
>> $APPDATA/sword
>> $ALLUSERSPROFILE/sword
>
> Please use Sword and not sword. It matters for the first one as that is what
> MacSword and BibleDesktop use on the Mac. On windows it doesn't matter, as
> windows is case insensitive, but BibleDesktop and one of the other apps in
> this thread already use upper case.

I agree with Sword vs sword. GS decided to use
ALLUSERSPROFILE/Application Data/ rather than just the
ALLUSERSPROFILE, so it would be synonymous with APPDATA. I think this
would be more correct. To see the difference, just type these commands
in a cmd window:

echo %APPDATA%
echo %ALLUSERSPROFILE%


>> Add the concept of an 'install location' to be the 'first' found writable
>> location.
>
> Yes, for the most part. When BibleCS (or BibleDesktop or GS for Windows or
> BPBible) is installed after one of the other SWORD apps for Windows, it
> should pre-empt the current install location. To ensure this the lookup
> order needs to be changed to look for the OS preferred locations first.

GS offers the ability for the user to specify the install location.
Because the engine decides on its own, we have to use work-arounds to
make this functionality work consistently. I do not personally like
that the engine decides in any circumstance where to install, but for
GS to use the engine the intended way for this, we need to be able to
specify which location to install. Currently we have to initialize an
SWMgr to only the desired install directory to ensure the installation
goes as the user intends. As this is a rather expensive process, we
would rather just add the desired directory to the InstallModule
function.

> I'm mostly concerned with the . and the .. specified locations. I think
> these should be deprecated. What is . or .. for one application is not for
> another. And it differs by OS and by programming language.

For GS, even if installed under Crosswire, the working directory will
be GnomeSword/bin, so . and .. will never be the correct location. The
working directory is a requirement of Gnome, so we cannot change.

Just to clarify something else. As I have indicated, I am strongly
opposed to installing modules under Program Files. I do not believe it
was ever good practice, and it certainly isn't workable in the Vista
world. However, GS will respect SWORD_PATH if it is set already, so if
a user has BibleCS already installed, GS will read and write to that
location. Some have said that perhaps SWORD_PATH isn't set in all
cases. I don't know what to do about that, but probably nothing unless
there are complaints.

Matthew