I guess the fact that environment variables are tricky to set for graphical applications for the Mac may be a blessing here :)
Should we try to package a macOS version that installs to /Applications/KiCad5 and /Library/Application Support/kicad? Adam On Sun, Jul 15, 2018, 2:41 AM Eeli Kaikkonen <[email protected]> wrote: > There are some people in the user forum who have spent time with these > v4->v5 problems, including me and Rene. The consensus about the environment > variables seems to be what Rene already said, that they should not (without > explicit user intervention) be set for the system, but from KiCad itself. > Nick confirmed that the current v5 installer won't set them by default. > They are still a problem if they have been set by v4 installer. > > su 15. heinäk. 2018 klo 5.04 Strontium ([email protected]) kirjoitti: > >> I honestly think each major revision of KiCad should be considered a NEW >> program, installs to a new place has its configuration and libraries all >> in a new location. Only Incremental updates 5.0 -> 5.1 should be >> considered upgrades. >> >> > I agree. It's probable that many users will want to continue with v4 for > old projects but v5 for new, and in the future the same thing will be true > for v5 vs. v6, because they break the file/project compatibility. But where > the compatibility is kept it's more likely to be considered as just an > upgrade. > > >> Kicad configuration isn't complex or onerous so if a user wants to bring >> a Kicad4 config into Kicad5 or 6 or whatever, then they do that >> themselves, otherwise after install Kicad5 is a fresh blank sheet with >> no relationship to anything that happened on the users computer in >> Kicad4. I am not familiar with the issues on Windows, but I would have >> thought now this is mostly a packaging issue only?? >> >> > I tried modifying the Windows installer, I only needed to replace some of > "KiCad" strings with "KiCad5" and it can install v5 alongside v4 > independently. The only problem is the configuration and the environment > variables set by v4. They can be handled with a startup script. See > https://forum.kicad.info/t/does-v5-have-to-overwrite-on-install/11282 for > some details. > > I also agree if it can't work this way now on Windows, then its all a >> bit late for V5, but maybe V6 can consider itself a new program distinct >> from V5. This would also help with testing, because users could use V5 >> for daily work, but also easily install a V6 daily side by side. >> > > All this could be done with the Windows installer, provided that a startup > script would be offered. > > To make this all, at least the startup script, as simple as possible I > would suggest one (or three) small changes to KiCad (for 5.1, or even > 5.0.1?). Add command line options --config=/path/to/config and > --ignore-env-vars. The former is obvious and would override > KICAD_CONFIG_HOME system environment variable. The latter would make KiCad > ignore all system environment variables and use the current internal logic > and the path settings UI instead. That way the old variables could be left > for v4 and the newer versions would be completely independent if the > command line switches were used. The command line switch for the config > path would be mostly for convenience. In Windows starting a program with > custom environment variables is tedious and error prone to write (see the > above mentioned thread). Command line switches are much easier. > > It could also be possible to make --ignore-env-vars=true by default. > Sharing the environment variables would be a special case if the user wants > that. > > The general problem with using system environment variables is that they > are good for situations when there's only one version of a program on the > system, and/or several processes share the same variable values. Neither of > them is true for parallel installations of KiCad. > > Eeli Kaikkonen > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers > Post to : [email protected] > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~kicad-developers > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp >
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