Roaming profile means that the work folders may roam, whereas the location of the executable is fixed.
Assuming each work location knows where a J installation resides, here's an approach of "Don't call me, I'll call you." All paths are relative. The ~user folder is set in the standard profile based on the environment variable assigned in the shell script, which executes J, taken from the current working folder. Here's the only thing you need to achieve this for Windows: ========================================================= rem jrun.bat - placed in root of working folder set USERPROFILE=%~dp0 start c:\Math\j64-602\bin\j.exe ========================================================= The first time in an empty folder, it will create the J-xxx-user user folder there. Then you fill it up with your work files, projects, targets etc. You can have many such work folders on the same or separate drives, etc. That's your true concept of roaming profiles. The only assumption is a brand new, regular J install in any known folder. Better if you install J into the same folder everywhere, otherwise, use a separate jhome.bat, etc for a different J install. > From: Henry Rich <[email protected]> > > I do that: I have > > 'Monitor';'~zip/quizmon';0 > > but, in the end, how does ~zip get defined? It changes from machine to > machine. And sometimes there is more than one USB drive installed in a > machine... > > Bill may be right that this really isn't a J problem but a Windows > problem; but we might make it easier for the user to work around it. My > original point was that kludge code run at startup to define the 'zip' > folder above is incompatible with Edit|Configure|Folders, which wipes it > out. A hook to set folder names might be enough. > > Henry Rich > > Oleg Kobchenko wrote: > > I do not understand why you insist on using > > an absolute path: > > > > 'Source';'y:\jal\trunk';0 > > > > instead of a relative path: > > > > 'Source';'~user/jal/trunk';0 > From: Henry Rich <[email protected]> > > We have 60 machines; what drive letter I get depends on which machine > and what else happens to be plugged in at the time. No static > assignment will work. > From: Henry Rich <[email protected]> > > "Put J on your USB drive" is not part of a solution, though. It would > work for me, but there are lots of clueless teachers at school and they > need to be able to plug in their USB drive and click the icon on their > machine to start my app. The app MUST be on a shared disk and J must > come from the school computer, NOT the USB drive. > From: Henry Rich <[email protected]> > > I haven't used SCM because I didn't want to have to administer it, & I > don't have anywhere to host it from. > From: Henry Rich <[email protected]> > Sent: Thu, November 12, 2009 10:18:46 PM > > I have started putting the code I work on on a USB drive. This allows > me to work on it whether I am at home or at school, which speeds up > development enormously. There are some kinks that I am trying to work > around, and occurs to me that as long as we are discussing Project > Manager, maybe some of these problems can be addressed. > > The environment is: code is on my USB drive; the resulting apps need to > be built on different machines with different targets: at school, a > network drive where all teachers can get to them, at home my home PC or > the USB drive itself. > > The problems are: > > 0. You never know what disk letter a USB drive is going to get. Some > machines it is E, other H, others I. How do I set up the folder > containing the project so it can be seen on different machines? I have > a roaming profile so the J profile is the same everywhere; but this > means the folder's drive letter is wrong most places. > > This is basically a deficiency in the folder system. I have worked > around it my having a program that sniffs out the drive that my stuff is > on, and modifies USERFOLDERS_j_. This is a kludge in that if I run > Edit|Configure, USERFOLDERS can get set back to its unmodified state. I > think I want some intelligent folder definition that works with USB drives. > > 1. The target varies from system to system. At school, I must build to > a subdirectory of X: which is our shared tools disk. At home, I would > be happy to build to the USB drive itself. > > My workaround has been to create an X: drive at home. This is a > kludge, and not transferable to other environments. What is needed is a > general way to have the targets, and perhaps some of the sources, depend > on which machine I am on. > > 2. I need backup! I am getting old enough that remembering where I put > my keys is a challenge - what happens if I lose my USB drive? I back up > the drive by hand, but I think that a 'backup' target, that just saves > everything, might be a good idea. It might even be helpful to take > backup every time Project Manager starts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
