[MAC] Portable Install

The windows version of XBMC has a user-agnostic "Portable Install" that puts all the configuration files in a neutral folder (in Program Files) that all windows accounts can access. The Mac version should have this also; Ideally the user should be able to define this location themselves so XBMC can also be put on an external HDD to be run on any Mac—but at the very least, there should be an option to install to a neutral, generally-accessible folder (like, for example, "/Library/Application Support/XBMC".)

Currently XBMC installs the library information in "~/Library/Application Support/XBMC", which only the originating user can access. =\

Willzyx Wrote:The windows version of XBMC has a user-agnostic "Portable Install" that puts all the configuration files in a neutral folder (in Program Files) that all windows accounts can access. The Mac version should have this also; Ideally the user should be able to define this location themselves so XBMC can also be put on an external HDD to be run on any Mac—but at the very least, there should be an option to install to a neutral, generally-accessible folder (like, for example, "/Library/Application Support/XBMC".)

Currently XBMC installs the library information in "~/Library/Application Support/XBMC", which only the originating user can access. =\

Unsupported and I'm not sure I'm interested in add that. It's too messy to figure out what to do when things are not right such as the disk is not mounted when xbmc is run.

davilla Wrote:Unsupported and I'm not sure I'm interested in add that. It's too messy to figure out what to do when things are not right such as the disk is not mounted when xbmc is run.

You could make them internal to the .app. Then just it's completely transparent.

darkscout Wrote:You could make them internal to the .app. Then just it's completely transparent.

And then they go pop when the app is updated. Buzz, try again.

Well, if the application file itself is also on the external disc, that wouldn't be a problem. But I get what you mean—you can't predict user behaviour.

In the case of installing to "/Library/Application Support", there shouldn't be any problem in doing that at all. Frankly, given that XBMC has user profile support of its own, I'm surprised it doesn't work like that in the first place.

Willzyx Wrote:Well, if the application file itself is also on the external disc, that wouldn't be a problem. But I get what you mean—you can't predict user behaviour.

In the case of installing to "/Library/Application Support", there shouldn't be any problem in doing that at all. Frankly, given that XBMC has user profile support of its own, I'm surprised it doesn't work like that in the first place.

User profiles in xbmc assumes it's running under a single OSX user account. Comes from the xbox days. Under OSX, you have real user accounts with real access permissions. So you can't just access some other OSX user's home directory unless you diddle with permission and that defeats the purpose of user accounts under OSX.

One could install to /Library/Application Support/ but that's owned by root and again you would have to diddle permissions and sudo to do the install. One thing we aimed at was to NOT have to sudo for install. Sudo scares neebee users The other thing we aimed at was to have XBMC prefs installed in the typical OSX user place, ie. ~/Library/Application Support/ .

Typically, under OSX, each user has their own 'prefs' for a single app. Those prefs are not shared. Permissions again. There are ways to force sharing but again, they require sudo and diddling permissions which is something we don't want to do for the 90 percentile of XBMC for OSX users.

I have only one machine (Mac Mini), but 3 different users (wife, son and I). We all have Mac OS X logins.

All of us would like to have the same movie database. Today I am populating the Library but the other 2 Mac users cant see it when they open XBMC using their sessions.

XBMC Portable mode (-p in Windows) is not available in Mac, right?

Is MySQL the only option here, then? In other words, install MySQL and configure XBMC to use it, and so whomever logs in to Mac and open XBMC it will use the MySQL as the "shared" Library repository?

Thanks

vladmetal Wrote:I have only one machine (Mac Mini), but 3 different users (wife, son and I). We all have Mac OS X logins.

All of us would like to have the same movie database. Today I am populating the Library but the other 2 Mac users cant see it when they open XBMC using their sessions.

XBMC Portable mode (-p in Windows) is not available in Mac, right?

Is MySQL the only option here, then? In other words, install MySQL and configure XBMC to use it, and so whomever logs in to Mac and open XBMC it will use the MySQL as the "shared" Library repository?

Thanks

stick userdata in 'shared', make symlinks that point to there in all user accounts. done.

davilla Wrote:stick userdata in 'shared', make symlinks that point to there in all user accounts. done.

Can it be a folder in my Airport disk (usb hdd attached to airport extreme)?

vladmetal Wrote:Can it be a folder in my Airport disk (usb hdd attached to airport extreme)?

any place that all users can get to is fine.