[Openicc] A directory for color profiles

[Kai-Uwe Behrmann]

Am 19.12.07, 17:48 +0900 schrieb Craig Ringer:

> I'll resurrect this discussion again to add one more piece of information:
> 
> >> Slighly similiar, of what I think, ColorSync allowes different locations
> >> too. This is for instance necessary to support the bundles approach. So
> >> the systems sees ICC profile folders inside bundles after some ColorSync
> >> calls.
> 
> It definitely does - it has an OS-wide search path that can be added to
> by applications. For example, Adobe apps add:
> 	/Library/Application Settings/Adobe/Color/Profiles
> to the search path, permitting all apps on the system to see the
> profiles installed by Adobe apps.

Can you point to documentation for such a variable or API?
 
> I personally think the search path mechanism is useful, though it'd be
> less so on a package-managed platform like a Linux distro than an OS
> like Apple's where all apps essentially have one or more private
> prefixes ( /Library/Application Data/${appname} , the .app bundle, etc)
> and shouldn't change things outside them.

The XDG variable  approach would not be of much help for the 
/Library/Application Data/${appname} case, except a bundle adding it 
local in its start script.

XDG=...:/Library/Application Data/Oyranos:...
 effective search => /Library/Application Data/Oyranos/color/icc

... anyway I did not find a hint about a further existing preference to 
install profiles into arbitrary paths and register them with some API:
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2035.html
It seems deprecated in 10.5.

So in summary the XDG approach allowes some additional ways, which can 
help a application to utilise for bundling on osX for instance.

The prefered and relyable way for installing profiles would IMO to use 
the static or absolute default paths as cited below:

/usr/local/share/color/icc
/usr/share/color/icc
~/.local/share/icc

(+ legacy ~/.color/icc)

Oh, this should be in the proposal ... done.


We can expect more applications getting bundled in linux/bsd as well. This 
way a vendor can create very handy self contained packages. We see such 
already. The remaining burden is to register the contained application 
somehow to the OS to appear in menus with icons and the like. But this is 
now offtoppic.


kind regards
Kai-Uwe Behrmann
--
developing for colour management 
www.behrmann.name + www.oyranos.org