[Lazarus] Lazarus shortcuts conflict with windows shortcuts

[Jürgen Hestermann]

Am 2012-08-15 13:57, schrieb Reinier Olislagers:
 > On 15-8-2012 13:39, Jürgen Hestermann wrote:
 >> 1.) I thought my settings were stored in
 >> "D:\Programme\lazarus\environmentoptions.xml".
 > "Changed this"? How? Using --primary-config-path then?

No. Many years ago (don't remember exactly) when installing Lazarus I was asked where the configs should reside, in the installation directory or in the user config directory. I chose installation directory.


 >> 2.) I *had* to delete it because I did not know any other way to get rid
 >> of the error message (I think it was something about lazbase not found
 >> or so). It took me even a while to find out that Lazarus has stored
 >> things in this directory too.
 > Or you could have asked on the ML or forum. IIRC, there were some
 > transition issues with old projects having LCLbase or something
 > dependencies.

It was discussed in this forum but there was no real fix given. Everybody said that it does not happen on a clean install but I was not aware that I did not have a clean install when renaming D:\Programme\Lazarus. Only after a while I found out that another Lazarus directory exists under "C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Jürgen\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten". I had a look in C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Jürgen\Anwendungsdaten" but there was no Lazarus directory so I was assured all is stored on D:.


 >> 1.) "Somewhere" should have been "C:\Dokumente und
 >> Einstellungen\<username>\Anwendungsdaten" and not "C:\Dokumente und
 >> Einstellungen\<username>\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten" (that's
 >> for scratch data only and is not save within our roaming profile at work
 >> for example).
 > Do you have some Microsoft documentation link for that? If that location
 > makes sense, I'd submit a patch so you (and the rest of us) don't get
 > bitten by this again...

I only found this in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_profile :

Local Settings is functionally similar to Application Data, and in fact it contains a second subfolder of that name. It also contains the temporary files generated by Windows programs themselves, and as a result of Internet Explorer's online activities. For standalone computers the two folders are functionally similar, but on networks employing Roaming profiles, the Local Settings folder is not included in the profile-synchronization process. Thus, data in the Local Settings folder will not be copied between computers when the user roams.


 >> 2.) I changed Lazarus to not use this path (but it seems either this was
 >> skipped with some update or was ignored at all).
 > "Changed Lazarus".... how then? By patching the binary? I suppose you
 > changed the primary config path then in your shortcuts as that seems the
 > only sane thing to do...

As said: If I remember right I was asked by an older installation routine where to store settings (which IMO was and would be a good idea). I am not asked again with newer installations though.


 > I suppose that running the installer again will create shortcuts...
 > don't know if it overwrites existing ones.
 > Do you think the installer shouldn't overwrite existing shortcuts? What
 > if you change the install directory in your new installation?

Why are you talking about shortcuts? The shortcut simply starts lazarus.exe.


 > Hmm yes. You did read the warning on the snapshots page, did you?

Yes, of course. So it's forbidden to post anything for those people who use snapshots? It is not said so there.


 > To counter this, what I do is have a "stable" version installed, which I
 > only rarely update.

I can't see any difference between "stable" and other versions. What makes a stable version stable? Interestingly, after major releases of software mostly a bug fix version is publish soon afterwards because suddenly many people start using the "stable" version and find bugs.


 > Well, either your settings are in your Lazarus dir (in which case
 > confirmation is very handy) or they are not. Apparently now you're
 > saying they're not.

That's true but I did not know about this because:
1.) I changed it (if I remember right) so I was under the impression they should be in the install dir
2.) Environmentoptions.xml exists in this dir (and has a recent date)
3.) Snapshot installer ask for overwriting this file from 2.)
4.) No Lazarus directory exists under "C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\<username>\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten"


 > Regardless, a user can customize that fallback environmentoptions.xml
 > and distribute it. That's why there's an overwrite question.

Yes, but if it is not used why ask and let the user believe that it is used? There are lots of other XML files in the installation path which seem to be overwritten silently when installing a snapshot. Why not this one too?


 > Presumably, an installer could check to see what release the existing
 > Lazarus install was, if the previous environmentoptions.xml was
 > unchanged with regard to the file distributed with that install etc...
 > but that seems like a lot of work to me.

In general, under Windows path settings are stored in the registry so an installer could look for an existing installation and only ask when overwriting config files which are in use.  Though this may not be possible for Linux if no central store for installed programs exists (which I don't know).


 > Do you really think having one humongous XML
 > file would clarify things? You'd still need to know about the XML schema
 > etc. anyway if you want to make meaningful changes.

I don't want to make changes within the file. I only want to copy settings (by copying the config file).

I am looking at Lazarus as a solid standalone product like Delphi (which of course is not the case but I hoped that everything was bundled so that it looked like that). Therefore I would expect a single configuration file for everything except paths which should be in a second config file (or even better in the registry). I know that this is quite Windows centric but that's how Windows users would expect it. Other Windows software does it this way.