Self-contained µTorrent on Mac

[mrsteveman1]

On Windows, uTorrent can be made to run entirely from a portable drive by putting its support files (found in the users appdata folder) in the same directory as the binary exe for µTorrent. When you do this, you can reinstall windows without losing your existing seed data, or move to a new machine. I have lost important torrent files and seed information after failing to backup the support files µTorrent uses before reinstalling windows, so this functionality is important to me.

Does the Mac version look in the same directory as the .app for its support files? They are found in ~/Library/Application Support/uTorrent right now, as well as a plist in ~/Library/Preferences.

It would be nice if it were possible to get it to run in a self-contained fashion, even nicer would be the ability to stick those files inside the .app

So does it do this now? Is it planned?

[thelittlefire]

Does OS X even allow that? "self contained" only refers to packages (.app files) afaik

[mrsteveman1]

Yes i know about .apps etc. There isn't anything preventing the binary from looking for its support files in the same directory as the .app or the binary inside it (those are 2 different directories of course). This is what the windows version does with the exe, its quite useful.

[NoOneButMe]

@thelittlefire: It's possible, however it's not recommended behavior on a Mac. Userland app data should go in ~/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Application Support.

[kjk]

This kind of portability is somewhat popular on Windows but virtually unheard of on Mac, so we don't plan to do it.

[mrsteveman1]

No problem

I can just as easily backup the right files which is what i was doing with transmission before the utorrent beta, or i suppose symlink the right plist and directory to a place on an external drive so at least the data stays where it wont get destroyed by a reinstall.

Anyhow thanks

[thelittlefire]

Blame Apple for their "guidelines"

Thanks for the info Noonebutme and kjk

[bizzyb0t]

This kind of portability is somewhat popular on Windows but virtually unheard of on Mac, so we don't plan to do it.

Hmmm. There's tons of apps that run from any directory, tons of "portable apps" that have been developed to be portable. I see no reason why a release of µtorrent cannot be made to run in a portable fashion. It's even easier to make a portable app on OS X than it is on Windows. Granted Windows is more popular but by comparison, you don't see "drag and drop" installs on Windows very often but they are pretty typical on OS X. Saying that you something is popular on Windows but is impossible on a Mac is quite funny considering that OS X is the more flexible and scalable operating system and that many apps already are portable.

For instance, have you ever used Leopard Cache cleaner? Notice how it can spawn a "portable" version of itself that you can run on a USB stick and use it on any Mac?

Here's a a couple of sites to give you an idea on how apps can be made to be portable.

http://www.freesmug.org/portableapps/

http://osxportableapps.sourceforge.net/

Blame Apple for their "guidelines"

What in tarnation are you talking about? That doesn't even make sense. It seems that you're mixing up Windows and Macs.

[Ultima]

Saying that ... something ... is impossible on a Mac is quite funny

I don't see the word "impossible" anywhere else in this thread.

[NoOneButMe]

bizzyb0t: All of the non-open source portable apps you listed are merely regular apps wrapped in a shell script that deletes files they create after the executable closes down. That's hardly portable. And you can write your own shell script here if you want that effect. Leopard Cache Cleaner is a fringe case. It's purpose is to delete preferences and app data and the like. There's no reason for it to create a preference that it later goes on to delete.

This is because the portable version is done by a third party who specifically wants portability. Not the primary devs who realize that the .app bundle is supposed to be treated as read-only. Keeping .apps as read-only prevents issues such as you not having write access to the app while trying to change a setting or create app data (ie: move a torrent there to save) and the app crashing on you.

It's easy to think of situations where this would happen. Having it work for a large majority of the people who use it normally (by having it in /Applications and keep user data where it belongs in ~/Library/Preferences and ~/Library/Application Support) is better then a few edge cases where people want to use uTorrent from a flash drive.

I can't remember which document it is in exactly, but i'm pretty positive that Apple has guidelines saying not to do what you're suggesting be done. Look in the Resources Programming guide or maybe the Bundle Programming guide.

[Freddedonna]

It's not like dragging the icon to your Apps folder takes a long time anyway...