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The installer on the netbeans-6.0beta1-javase-macosx.dmg disk image always puts the netbeans application in the /Applications folder on OS X 10.4.10 (PPC). There ought to be a way to specify or select the destination folder. (In my case, I'd like to install Netbeans in /Developer/Applications along with other development tools.) Thanks.
*** Issue 116194 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
From http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/NB6MacInstallers : Apple Software Delivery Guide recommends two ways * Put an application bundle in the disk image. The users "installs" the software by dragging and dropping the app icon onto the Desktop or onto /Applications folder or anywhere they desire. This is very simple but the drawback is we cannot use pack200 compression because no code is run during this process. The download size would increase very significantly. * Create an installer package for the software we want to install. An installer package is run by Mac Installer. There is certain flexibility but usually Mac installer packages just use hard-coded installation locations (/Applications folder for desktop apps like NetBeans) and ask the user a minimum set of questions, basically only to require the users to accept the license. Although pre-/post-installation code can be run it has limited ability to ask users for additional information via custom UI. NetBeans 6.0 for Mac will be delivered as an installer package.
Many mac installers allow the user to select an installation folder, although there also are many that automatically use /Applications. Developer tools like netbeans are not generic consumer applications like iTunes or Microsoft Word, and there is no particular reason to assume that developers want to put them in /Applications instead of some other folder. Since it is definitely possible for an installer to allow a user to select the installation folder, it would be good for netbeans to allow this. At a very minimum, the installation instructions should describe whether it is safe to move the installed application elsewhere if there is no time to fix the installer at this point.
There are other implications of the installers as currently delivered for Mac OS. - Can't select the version of Java to use for any of the installers. - Can't specify the default port for GF or TC. - Can't specify the administrative userid or password for GF. - If a newer TC is installed (from e.g. build 20070926) NB still defaults to the older one in /Applications/NetBeans. To me, it seems that the original reason for having installers for GF, TC, and OpenESB was to "pre-connect" the additional modules to NB. Would it be easier to simply have pre-built applications for NB, GF, and TC that the user could drag copy to desired locations? Then let the user link them up on first use?
*** Issue 117545 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
The default install directory for any development tools in Mac OS X is /Developer and not /Application. It would be very helpful to set /Developer as install root directory, because it is not easy to move NetBeans because a lot of path has to be modified.
Isn't the default directory for developer tools /Developer/Applications? That's where XCode lives, and would be a good default for Netbeans. If, somhow, a user is trying to install Netbeans on a machine without the developer tools already installed, /Applications would be a likely fallback, if Netbeans is reluctant to create /Developer/Applications for some reason.
Also, Beta 2 installs in a different directory from Beta 1, which means that it's necessary afterwards to manually delete Beta 1. Also, whatever Apple's directives say, I prefer to keep all applications I've installed in /Applications/local so they don't get mixed up with what comes with the OS.
by design nothing will be changed for 6.0
With current architecture it is impossible. But we have to reconsider it later. Reopening and changing the type.
In Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, it is possible to choose the installation directory for any package install. Will this solve the issue? If not (i.e., if it MUST be installed under /Applications) there should be a warning somewhere to not move the install to anyplace else.
No, Leopard is not the solution. Yes, Leopard allows one to choose a different location for the install. However, due to the separate install pieces (why?) Open ESB refuses to install unless NB and GF are installed in the default locations.
I'm going to vote for this issue, the problem being not only that I cannot change the path, but the fact that I need *administrator* privileges to install NetBeans. This is not only an unneeded security escalation, but if the administrator doesn't want to install NetBeans, the other users are out of luck, no ?
*** Issue 132091 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Leopard let me select the installation volume (disk) to be other than the default boot. However, it limited my choices to boot volumes. I wanted to install on a non-boot disk. My workaround was to install it and then move it. This begs the question: why isn't NetBeans just a disk image with the application on it so I can drag it anywhere I like. Certainly seems like that would be a trivial solution...
Assigned to new owner.