Mackup app config files should be version independent?

[captnswing]

I notice two different paradigms for the config files currently in the mackup/applications folder. Sometimes several config files exist for different app versions. E.g.

• Sublime2
• Sublime3
• appcode 2
• appcode 3

Sometimes, one mackup app config file supports several versions of the app simultaneously. E.g.

• IntelliJ IDEA
• Pycharm

...I think it would be great with the latter approach (one app config file for several versions).

This could be easier if the ini files supported wildcards in them, e.g.

Library/Preferences/com.sublimetext.*.plist could catch several versions of Sublime Text, and Library/Application Support/IntelliJIdea* would catch the App Support files for several IntelliJ versions

[captnswing]

thinking about how this could be implemented, e.g. by introducing a deprecated subdirectory in the applications folder. Then e.g. moving sublime-text-3.cfg and sublime-text-2.cfg to the deprecated directory and introducing an applications/sublime-text.cfg in their place.

The mackup program could be changed to emit warnings and migration instructions when config files in the deprecated folder are found in a mackup.cfg

[lra]

Yeah, the multiple versions is an issue. On homebrew this is handled with a version stanza, e.g. python and python@3.

Adding optional versioning for each application is the way to go longterm. No need to have different folders, we could add versioning the the files listed in each application, e.g.:

[v1]
file1

[v2]
file2

(not suggesting it, just an example).

This would also solve the upgrade problem, where upgrading mackup ditches the old state of applications supported before, which makes it impossible to upgrade cleanly as the new version can't know about old files with the current system.

[semkagtn]

Please, check: https://github.com/lra/mackup/pull/1581

[jneuendorf]

Issue #949 seems to be related as well