Mac plugin installer -- yay/nay?
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[cliff notes in red]
i've learned a way to make installers for os x..
they are single packages that can install for various versions of sketchup.. as i have them set up now, they'd install a plugin for each version of sketchup on the system but they could be set up to allow the user to choose which version the plugin should go to [ie- SU5, 6, 7, or 8] but it's a less elegant solution in my opinion (and if a user wants to do that, they probably should know how to manually install anyway)
i guess my question is- would you ruby writers want me to make osx install pkgs for you? or maybe better, i could start a thread here with various osx packages available for download..
fwiw, i'm usually always available via PM (i'd be notified by phone/email if a pm is sent to me) so i could make a pkg rather quickly upon an update..
or, if none of that is wanted, i'm mostly wondering if it's ok to make an install pkg for people here on the forums that have install problems.. i can make four or five installers in the same amount of time it takes me to type a response/explanation of how to do it
..
it just seems like there's a disproportionate amount of osx ruby install problems here and i think it's because we receive the zips in different manner than on windows.. the instructions are always 'unzip' in the plugins folder but if you do that on a mac, there's an extra folder enclosing the plugins and they won't work.. -
Hi Jeff,
This sound like a great idea
Please keep me posted on progress.Mike
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+1 Jeff. It's quite often a real hassle.
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I'd be interested.
I'd also be interested in learning it. -
It's interesting, that Macs have always been so easy to install programs onto from the beginning, but rubies in particular continue to be a trial and error process. I'm surprised more people aren't responding given the number of threads devoted to, and questions asked in particular plugin topics on this subject.
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They're ready to go but I just want to test on a couple of friends' machines first.
I have a ppc with tiger, a intel desktop with leopard, and a MBP with snow leopard and the installers work fine with all of them but they are all similar environments with my prefs.
I'll test a few today on other people's computers.I'll also post a little tut thom.
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Great stuff Jeff
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And thank you!!!
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Hi Jeff,
one thing you might need to consider, besides the version of sketchup, is the location of plugins, because on the mac, they can either be inside the user´s library or the main library folder of osx. Some may prefer to have plugins global, other may like to have different plugins, per user.
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santiago,
i've thought about including a pre-flight shell script that will find out if there's a plugin folder in the user library and if true, it will move everything to the system library and delete the user plugin folder..
this wouldn't be in every installer and only for people with broken plugins or the alternative is making a little apple script which will accomplish this..
anyway, the user plugin folder isn't there upon a fresh install.. that folder is created by the podium installer and often leads to broken plugins.. i've had a few conversations with the podium people and they have indeed fixed the installer with the latest version and it no longer creates the extra plugin folder..
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@caronte01 said:
Hi Jeff,
one thing you might need to consider, besides the version of sketchup, is the location of plugins, because on the mac, they can either be inside the user´s library or the main library folder of osx. Some may prefer to have plugins global, other may like to have different plugins, per user.
According to Google the plugins should be at
/Library/Application Support/Google/Google SketchUp [n]/SketchUp/plugins
http://code.google.com/apis/sketchup/docs/loading.htmlThere is no mention of the user directory.
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I have never had a problem installing rubies on my mac. That said I don't install every ruby that comes along.
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