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The default install directory for any development tools in Mac OS X is /Developer and not /Application. It would be very helpful to set /Developer as install root directory, because it is not easy to move NetBeans because a lot of path has to be modified.
not a defect but the RFE.
according to this document: http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/NB6MacInstallers /Applications/NetBeans is the right place
Yes, the documentation says /Application is the place tom install, but it doesn't fit to the typical behaviour in Mac OS X ! In Apple Computers the place to install those kind of tools is /Developer not /Application. Unfortunatly the NetBeans configuration preferrs absolut paths instead of relative path and it is a little bit tricky to change all configuration files to update a new place for NetBeans. Mac OS X differs from Windows and Linux in this case.
/Developer/Applications would be the location if it were to be used; but there is no guarantee that a user will have Apple's development tools installed, so that location may not exist on all systems (and the installer would need permissions to create it - do we have them?). We should also find out from Apple if they think NetBeans should install into /Applications or /Developer/Applications - they may consider /Developer/* reserved for only their own development tools. Other IDEs install into Applications, and I think that's where users will expect it to be. If we do choose to install into /Developer/Applications, probably the resulting NetBeans.app should be symlinked in /Applications, since that is where users are most likely to look for it. Personally I would just be happy enough if we installed into /Applications without putting NetBeans.app into a subdirectory of /Applications/NetBeans, as creating a directory in /Applications which the user must drill through to get to the actual application is un-mac-like behavior.
FYI, I posted to the Apple java-dev mailing list about this issue to try to get some input either from folks at Apple or at least other Mac Java developers about what their expectations would be.
One worthwhile point from discussion on the Apple Java Dev list: The Migration Assistant will not migrate anything under /Developer. The Migration Assistant is what moves your installed applications and such from an old computer to a new one. This makes the case to me that /Applications should be the destination (but we should get rid of the extra directory).
I don't agree at all, the /Developer folder is historically just for everything that gets installed by the Apple Developer Tools, and it should be my choice to decide if I want to put another developer application of my choice in /Developer/Applications. Most of all I could decide not to install the Apple Developer Tools and not having any /Developer folder on my mac. I don't know if there is any issue for this, but I think that the installation should return to be just a DMG with the NetBeans.app folder I can move anywhere I want without any administrator password request.
Okay, here's the official word from an Apple engineer: -- /Developer is only for Xcode and the related native Mac OS X graphical developer tools. Since Xcode is now relocatable as of Leopard, you cannot assume the existence of /Developer, even if you can assume developer tools are installed. /Applications is the standard location, but as always, you app should be able to be drag-and-drop installed into any directory. If your application requires additional resources to live outside of your application's double clickable bundle, it should place them in /Library/Application Support/<your app name>. Cheers, Mike Swingler Java Frameworks Engineer Apple Inc. -- Based on that, probably this issue should be closed as WONTFIX (but I agree the application should be relocatable, and we can do better than we have in the past with the way the userdir and installation structure is handled)
Closing as WONTFIX per Tim`s evaluation.