applications_dir under prefix (was: Re: Framework install location)

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Oct 12, 2008, at 04:02, Anders F Björklund wrote:

> The configure scripts used the /Applications and /Library locations
> (or ~/Applications and ~/Library) because that was the rule at the  
> time,
> made it easier to integrate with things outside of MacPorts itself  
> such
> as Xcode or Services. That applied to applications/frameworks/
> tclpackage.
>
> I would prefer prefix, myself...

I don't know the implications of having the frameworks outside of / 
Library/Frameworks (e.g. in ${prefix}/Library/Frameworks) but for  
applications I thought the point was that the OS wouldn't know about  
them (e.g. things like "open -a foo" wouldn't work unless foo.app was  
somewhere under /Applications). Though testing this right now, I  
can't reproduce that.

If that is a problem, we could have MacPorts create a symlink at / 
Applications/MacPorts pointing to ${prefix}/Applications/MacPorts if  
one does not already exist (if installing as root). This would  
satisfy the majority of users who have just a single installation,  
but still work fine for those with multiple installations. Finally  
there could be a configure switch to not make that symlink.