[PATCH RFC] clone: copy hgrc paths if source and dest are local

[Jason Harris]

On Jun 14, 2010, at 7:01 PM, Steve Losh wrote:

> 
> On Jun 14, 2010, at 12:08 PM, Jason Harris wrote:
> 
>> On Jun 14, 2010, at 5:59 PM, Steve Borho wrote:
>> 
>>> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 10:51 AM, Steve Losh <steve at stevelosh.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On Jun 14, 2010, at 11:49 AM, Jason Harris wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> ...
>>>> 
>>>> As a mac user, I can say there is only one real stylish way and that's: Drag
>>>> and drop all the way... :) :)
>>>> 
>>>> http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/userexperience/conceptual/applehiguidelines/XHIGInstallationsUpdates/XHIGInstallationsUpdates.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002722-CJACABIA
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Don't forget the handy "offer to move myself to /Applications when Steve
>>>> accidentally runs me from his ~/Downloads folder"
>>>> behavior: http://github.com/potionfactory/LetsMove
>> 
>> Interesting. This isn't standard apple HIG (that I am aware of...) Do you think it adds to the experience? I think if a user wants to run the application from the downloads folder, let them. Thats what I do a lot of the time and then if after playing with it I determine that I actually like the application then I move it to some relevant folder on my disk. If I had to do this move for each of the software products I played with it would be a bit of a pain...
>> 
>> As Apple says "You should ensure that installing your software is a quick and painless experience." putting up this dialog of "move to the system" isn't exactly painful of course but... Hmm I don't know if it adds that much. I don't have strong opinions on this though...
> 
> From the blog post that the github repo links to:
> 
>    That is, if you launch The Hit List from a folder that is not an
>    Applications folder, it asks if it should move itself to /Applications.
> 
>    Why it does this, though, is not for the reason that most people expect.
> 
>    [...]
> 
>    It took me some time to connect the dots, but once I did, it was pretty
>    damn obvious.  People were moving The Hit List into the Applications folder
>    while it is still running.  Mac users think nothing of moving a file while
>    it's being used. Mac OS X does some fancy things to allow this for the
>    majority of cases so I wasn't expecting Cocoa to get tripped up by
>    something that now seems trivial. But alas, it was trying to load files
>    from the old location and freaking out when it couldn't find them.
> 
> So yes, I think it improves the experience for a number of reasons:
> 
> 1. Users that drag the app to /Applications before running it see no change at
>   all.
> 
> 2. Users that want the application in /Applications but forget to drag it first
>   will get the prompt and click "Move".  Without the prompt, some of them may
>   try to move it to /Applications while it's still running, see weird errors,
>   and submit bug reports about them.
> 
> 3. Users that want to try it out (like you) can click the "Don't Move" button
>   (or press space) once and try it out.
> 
>   The next time they launch it (perhaps through something like Quicksilver or
>   Spotlight) they get the prompt again.  If they decide it's worth keeping
>   they don't need to open their ~/Downloads and /Applications folders to be
>   able to drag -- they just click and go.
> 
> 4. Users that want to *permanently* run the app from somewhere else (probably
>   a small minority) have two extra clicks the first time they run it.
> 
> Basically:
> 
> * It doesn't affect a large portion of users at all.
> * It improves the experience for the majority of those remaining.
> * It prevents weird errors (and bug reports and bad first impressions) for
>  a minority of users.
> * It inconveniences a small minority of users.
> 
> I think 1+2+3 outweighs 4, but others may feel differently.

Thanks for detailed explanation! Happily MacHg just closes if you move the application while running. Thus they won't be getting random errors like the authors who had this problem. Its probably just me as well but I don't have my applications all inside /Applications. I have folders like graphics, utilities, write, programming, with sub folders, etc and all...

The best solution would be to have the application being smart enough to allow itself to be moved while it is running... But the authors couldn't see how to do this nicely, and admittedly putting a lot of effort into this probably doesn't seem like a wise investment of programming time.

Since this still isn't standard apple behavior I won't include it for now. (Doing so would be pretty easy using their code.) In fact if apple was to make this standard behavior I think they would likely instead try to find a solution for allowing a running application to be be moved in general. (I gather from reading that carbon was better at handling this than many of the cocoa libraries.)

But again thanks for the explanation and reasoning...

Cheers,
   Jas

>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Jas
>> 
>>> I hope that when the time arrives to build a Mac installer, a Mac geek
>>> will step up and volunteer to "Do it right".
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Steve Borho
>> 
>