[MacPorts] #66507: Allow customizing applications_dir on a per-port basis

[MacPorts]

#66507: Allow customizing applications_dir on a per-port basis
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  Reporter:  esbugz       |      Owner:  (none)
      Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
  Priority:  Normal       |  Milestone:
 Component:  base         |    Version:  2.8.0
Resolution:               |   Keywords:
      Port:               |
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Comment (by esbugz):

 Replying to [comment:1 ryandesign]:
 > It's a nice idea, but I don't see how it would be possible in the
 general case. The paths where a port installs its files are baked into the
 pre-compiled archives we distribute. If you change the `prefix` or
 `applications_dir` or certain other variables in macports.conf (which
 applies to all ports),

 I'm not talking about a general case and `prefix`, but mostly about GUI
 apps that should work from any folder (e.g.,
 https://ports.macports.org/port/alacritty/)
 (though I'm in general curious why the build have evolved in such a way as
 to be so sensitive to absolute paths instead of relying on some env var or
 other method of relative system overrides, it's not something I plan to as
 MacPorts to solve)

 > then you are no longer able to receive our pre-compiled archives which
 is a significant drawback of deviating from our defaults.

 Absolutely, breaking this would be a disaster, it's too much of a waste
 having to rebuild the world instead of downloading a prebuilt binary that
 was grown in an organic app farm ;).

 >may not be possible if the reference is within a binary file. References
 to the items you wanted to move might even be contained within other
 ports; how could we deal with that situation?

 a) Would a symlink to the new app's location help?
 b) if not, then these apps would simply not be good candidates for
 relocation

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://trac.macports.org/ticket/66507#comment:5>
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