RE: [XaraXtreme-dev] Startup problems due to help

["Neil Howe" <NeilH@xxxxxxxx>]

> --On 11 July 2006 11:14 +0200 Martin Wuerthner <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> 
> > Since the latest change that enabled the help functionality XaraLX
> > fails to start up here. After some tracing through the code I
noticed
> > that InitHelpPath insists on finding the directory
> > /usr/share/xaralx/doc/en, which does not exist here - which is not a
> > surprise since I cannot see how that should have been created by the
> > build process.
> 
> I'd add that we shouldn't really be poking around randomly in
directories
> which don't exist in the first place. I'm hoping we are not hardcoding
> directory paths in the source files which will make portabililty hard.
> This
> is exactly what Vadim was saying should be specified by -D on the
compile
> line, so it can be specified from configure. Even if we are using
binreloc
> etc., that's not a reason to encode things in the source which are
going
> to
> be wrong (statistically) on most platforms (as there is no right
answer).
> I
> realize the help file stuff is "first cut" and thus I'm offering no
> criticism, but we need to get this right.
> 
> Can I suggest we document our own directory structure for resources
and
> things (e.g. doc/[language] movies/ templates/ or whatever) 

The 0.5 directory structure is described in the autopackage install
instructions
www.xaraxtreme.org/developers/documentation/autopackage_installation.htm
l
But that will be expanded and updated when we release 0.6 soon.

> and by default
> get the root location (e.g. "/usr/share/xaralx", or
"/usr/local/xaralx",
> or
> "/usr/apps/xaralx", or "/opt/xaralx" or whatever) from the user
> preferences

Ok, but that does assume that users won't have more than 1 version of LX
installed. The advantage of looking for resource files relative to the
running executable is that you can have 2 completely separate versions
of Xara LX on your machine with their own separate resources (ok, they'd
share preferences and other information under ~/.xaralx).

> file which would be prepended to the relevant node. When the
preference is
> not there (i.e. on creation) get it from a string (binreloc'd if
> necessary)
> which is defined on the compile-command line from a variable, which
can be
> set at configure time. That way we solve the "where is the system
> installed
> directory" problem once and for all.

Ok, so we'll make it so that the location can be set at compile time. If
not set at compile time (the default) then we'll work out the location
relative to the executable, as currently.

Are people happy with there being just 1 root directory under which all
Xara LX resource files (help, movies, examples, etc.) are stored? I much
prefer this for simplicity.

Neil