The install.sh for growlnotify installs the man page to /usr/local/ man, but this path is not in the default $MANPATH (set in /etc/ man.conf). The preferred location for man pages corresponding to binaries in /usr/local/bin (at least in Leopard) is /usr/local/share/ man. This is similar to the mappings for /usr/bin --> /usr/share/man, and even /bin --> /usr/share/man. I found that I had about 20 man pages installed in /usr/local/man, but none of them were accessible by default, and most were from older installs, so I moved them all to / usr/local/share/man, which solved the problem.
Here is a replacement install.sh that makes it a bit more flexible (and correct):
#!/bin/sh
binPath="/usr/local/bin"
if [ ! -d $binPath ]; then
echo "- Creating $binPath"
sudo mkdir -p $binPath
fi
sudo cp growlnotify $binPath/growlnotify
manPath="/usr/local/share/man/man1"
if [ ! -d $manPath ]; then
echo "- Creating $manPath"
sudo mkdir -p $manPath
fi
sudo cp growlnotify.1 $manPath/growlnotify.1
echo "Installation complete. Please add $binPath to your PATH
environment variable if you have not already. Consult your shell's
documentation if you do not know how to do this."
Also, even though INSTALL.txt is intended for Unix-savvy users, it does seem to be pretty out of date. There isn't even a makefile in the directory, and running `make install` from a DMG complains about a "Read-only file system", since it basically copies install.sh to install, which is an unnecessary step. Instead, should probably read as follows:
"Running `sudo ./install.sh' will install growlnotify in /usr/local/ bin and the manpage in /usr/local/share/man. After installation, you can get more information by typing `man growlnotify'."
I can understand why using growlnotify from normal apps would be discouraged. However, I've found it useful for providing feedback for Terminal tasks that take a while to complete, such as Ant builds, shell scripts, background tasks, etc. Making growlnotify hard to install doesn't do anyone a favor until/unless there actually is a "better" way. Even so, I'd be sad to see it go away, since it's a great little utility. (I give my word of honor never to use it from a native application!)
- Quinn On Nov 3 2007, Rob Lewis wrote:
It seems that the growlnotify executable got copied to /usr/local/
bin, but for the
life of me I cannot get the man page to work.
If I type:
man growlnotify
I get:
No manual entry for growlnotify
What am I missing?
Oh, and the INSTALL.txt is miles over the head of the average OS X
user, I'd bet.
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