Re: what are the disadvantages in keeping libraries and input files inside app bundle

On Jan 28, 2011, at 11:55, Abhijeet Singh wrote:

> Hi,I have number of static and dynamic libraries in my application. At present i have kept all the libraries in "\usr\local\lib" folder. I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to keep all these libraries inside the application bundle itself? Similarly there are number of input files that my application uses. At present these files are kept in "Library/Application Support/MyApp" folder. These files can also be kept inside the bundle.The advantage with this approach is I dont need to create different directories on target machine at the time of deployment since all the app data is inside the app bundle itself.What could be the major disadvantages of this approach?Thanks & RegardsAbhijeet

You basically answered your own question. And I could add that it also makes it easy to uninstall the app, i.e. no need for an uninstaller. Moreover, when you install them, on the system, you may have a version conflict for the libraries. If only your app uses the libraries, then you should put them in the bundle, not install them on the system. You may only install them on the system when you have multiple apps that use the same libraries, but that cpould be dangerous as well because of the version conflicts. As for input files in app support, I would also put them in the bundle, unless you may want (power) users to give a chance to tweak them. The standard place for this is SharedSupport.

Christiaan