Support for out of prefix installation

[Thiago Macieira]

Martijn Klingens wrote:
>Suppose we install a 3rd party app in $APPDIR, then for this application
> (and *ONLY* for this application) the resources should be looked for in
> $KDEHOME, $APPDIR, $KDEDIRS. If kbuildsycoca could create multiple
> sycocas (one for $KDEHOME, one for $APPDIR and one for all shared
> lower-level dirs combined) and merge them then we can keep the
> performance level up and also keep apps in their own prefix. The
> existing full sycoca can (and probably should) be kept for performance
> reasons for the apps that reside in $KDEDIR.

We already *do* that on Linux and on other platforms where we can 
reasonably well determine what the application executable is. (On Linux, 
we readlink(2) /proc/self/exe). The prefix is then added to the list of 
resource dirs.

So an application requesting an icon will find it is in own prefix even if 
it's not registered in KDEDIRS or XDG_DATA_DIRS. This even works for 
libraries looking resources up when the the library's prefix is neither 
registered nor the same as the application's.

The issue here is for the shared resources: those that are supposed to be 
found by other applications., like .desktop menu files, MIME types, etc.

Maybe we can have a 3rd option: install into ${prefix} and symlink 
into /usr. Some kind of "broken symlink removal" tool should be run every 
now and then to clean up.

-- 
  Thiago Macieira  -  thiago (AT) macieira.info - thiago (AT) kde.org
    PGP/GPG: 0x6EF45358; fingerprint:
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3. Ac seo woruld wearð geborod, swá se Scieppend cwæð "Gewurde Unix" and 
wundor fremede and him "Unix" genemned, þæt is se rihtendgesamnung.
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