all labs seem to have different policies about what folders can be written to, and where users have access. we need processing to be able to run as painlessly as possible in these situations, and to do that, i need input on how your lab environments are set up.

i've started two new items in the bugs db to track problems on both macosx and windows (we can add a linux version too if there are people having trouble there).

mac os x issues:
http://dev.processing.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=177
windows issues:
http://dev.processing.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=178

for instance, on the mac.. do you let users write to ~/Library? /tmp? the Desktop? /Applications/Processing 92 or whatever?

similar for the pc, which folders are locked down?

your input would be greatly appreciated.. please just add your notes in those bug items (rather than here, cuz i'll just have to copy/paste over there anyway).

Most of our computers are Macs, a few PC's and Linux boxes are hanging around. And on our macs, we follow two methods :

1. Anything goes until it gets too messy on the desktop
2. Move everything where it should be when #1 no longer works

More seriously, it's probably best to follow Apple's guidelines on this issue :

- Personal files (.pde) stored in the ~/Documents/Processing/ folder
- Personal configuration (i.e. application preferences) stored in ~/Library/Application Support/Processing

On the question of plug-ins, that's where things get more complicated. For example, since Processing uses Java, do we put plug-ins in /Library/Java/Extensions/ ?

The current structure of putting Processing-specific plug-ins into the Processing folder works for us, and keeps things pretty clean. But we don't have that many restrictions since we're a small lab and work off trust. We don't have restrictions on the /Applications/ folder, for example. This might not be the case for other labs. But I don't see how they could do any serious development work with such restrictions.

Re-reading all that I realize I'm not much help here. Perhaps you can give us a more specific example of some of the choices you're trying to make. So far, we haven't had any permission problems.

With our macs, we use an ldap server for user authentication.  We install apps as administrator and then clone the machines.  When a user logs in for the first time, a home directory is created according to their homedir variable, which is usually /home/users/username, rather than /Users/username.  The Desktop and Library folders are created.  I imagine that processing is allowed to write to the user's Library folder.

With the PCs, we use SAMBA as a PDC with an ldap backend, all apps are installed as administrator, and users are normal users without roaming profiles.  We haven't seen the permissions issues with the PCs, so far.

Hope that helps, please let me know if you have questions.

--
Charles F. Harvey
Manager, Help Desk Services
UCLA Design | Media Arts
http://support.design.ucla.edu