> Well, the obvious place to store it would be the <userdir>/etc/netbeans.conf > although there's potentially a chicken and egg upgrade issue with doing that.
That sounds fine, too. Though netbeans.conf is traditionally modified the user, and never automatically. If the launcher is going to modify a setting, it might be best to have a separate file for that so that we don't have to worry about preserving comments etc. (And so the user doesn't have to wonder if a change was their own or made automatically.) > But then we've also been making a move to get rid of native executables > rather than add more, as they're a pain for releasing. In my platform app I just treat the native executable as a pre-compiled asset that doesn't actually need to be re-built for each release. I also intentionally do not sign it. (Rather, I sign the entire MSI installer on Windows and the entire application package on MacOS.) > NBPackage already builds a small Swift launcher on macOS. That might be > extended to provide that functionality without impact on IDE builds on other > platforms. Yeah, my inclination would be to implement the same "browse for JDK on first start" enhancement in both the MacOS Swift launcher and the netbeans64.exe launcher on Windows. It's twice the work, but once it's done, it's done, and the launcher can be left alone again essentially forever. -- Eirik From: Neil C Smith <neilcsm...@apache.org> Reply-To: "dev@netbeans.apache.org" <dev@netbeans.apache.org> Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2025 at 8:19 AM To: "dev@netbeans.apache.org" <dev@netbeans.apache.org> Subject: Re: Re : Re: heads up: windows installer/uninstaller issues I realized I didn't respond to this ... On Fri, 21 Mar 2025 at 18:06, Eirik Bakke <eba...@ultorg.com.inva<mailto:eba...@ultorg.com.inva>lid> wrote: > I don't think having a system installed IDE relying on any of these transient > user space things makes sense This is true--but perhaps it could be alleviated by having the installer install per-user rather than per-machine? This is what I did for my MSI installer, after a lot of research. ... The great thing about this is that no administrator access is needed to install. This is feasible, although at the moment would require using the NBPackage facility to override default templates - in particular https://github.com/apache/netbeans-nbpackage/blob/master/src/main/resources/org/apache/netbeans/nbpackage/innosetup/InnoSetup.iss.template Adding settings for either https://jrsoftware.org/ishelp/index.php?topic=setup_privilegesrequiredoverridesallowed or https://jrsoftware.org/ishelp/index.php?topic=setup_privilegesrequired It might be useful to add an option for that instead. Would need testing. Some people do want admin installs though. And if NetBeans is installed this way, then makes more sense to allow the user to browse to their own unzipped OpenJDK distro somewhere when they first run netbeans64.exe. If that folder later goes away, we can always prompt again. .. I'd propose the same approach as for the Windows installer; have a small native executable that prompts for the location of the JDK. Then remember it for subsequent runs. The single piece of information about where the JDK is can be stored in the user's home directory, e.g. "~/.netbeans". Well, the obvious place to store it would be the <userdir>/etc/netbeans.conf although there's potentially a chicken and egg upgrade issue with doing that. Partly this comes down to enhancing all the launchers, which would benefit the zip too. But then we've also been making a move to get rid of native executables rather than add more, as they're a pain for releasing. NBPackage already builds a small Swift launcher on macOS. That might be extended to provide that functionality without impact on IDE builds on other platforms. That's mostly concentrating on the lesser point I was making, which was more about the importance of the signed bundle being immutable, self-contained, and with all the correct permissions. Best wishes, Neil --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@netbeans.apache.org<mailto:dev-unsubscr...@netbeans.apache.org> For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@netbeans.apache.org<mailto:dev-h...@netbeans.apache.org> For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
