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by SoftwareMaven 5061 days ago
OS X has a ~/Library directory that houses application settings and much else. It is hidden by default.

There is no question there is a need to have a place that "plebeian users" can't access. IMO, dot-files and dot-directories are as good as anywhere.
1 comments
DeepDuh 5061 days ago
OSX, because of its big corporate watchdog, and the separation of the 'GUI' layer and the unix layer, has the cleanest directory structure by far IMO. Most of the times you don't even need a manpage or google to find out how to repair a misbehaving application - just delete its plist in ~/Library/Preferences, possibly also its ../ApplicationSupport directory. The OSX defaults system is so well designed, every time I need to do support on other systems I just ask myself why not every OS works this way. I can understand why Linux is the way it is and I like that too (for other reasons), but it at least shows why the Windows Registry is such a bad idea.
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DeepDuh 5061 days ago
Why can't I reply to some comments? That comment about the new sandboxed folder structure made me realize he's right. What's going on with all those symlinks inside the container directory?

This just shows to me what a bad idea sandboxing is for those kind of apps that are supposed to interoperate with the whole system. Is there even a security benefit vs. pure unix permissions if you sandbox the filesystem but then you link in tons of crap that could be potentially attacked?

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Macha 5061 days ago
It's to do with comments that get deeply nested quickly, presumably to prevent back and forth flame wars and the like. If you really want to reply to such a comment, click "link" and there is a reply link on the that page, or just wait.
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rahoulb 5060 days ago
> This just shows to me what a bad idea sandboxing is for those kind of apps that are supposed to interoperate with the whole system.

Isn't the point of sandboxing specifically to prevent apps interoperating with the whole system? (I've not really paid it much attention so far)

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DeepDuh 5060 days ago
Yeah but what's the point in making Preview.app sandboxed? It's a damn document viewer.
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rahoulb 5059 days ago
There have been numerous PDF exploits in the past (including jail breaking iOS) - sounds like it needs its scope limiting.
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pjmlp 5061 days ago
To be fair, that filesystem structure was already available in NeXTStep.
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dchest 5061 days ago
had the cleanest directory structure until 10.8:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Application Support/Preview

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Preview/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Preview.plist

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X-Istence 5060 days ago
Isn't this change because of app sandboxing?
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