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Bug 313715

Summary:	install plugins per user even when installed system-wide
Product:	[Eclipse Project] Platform	Reporter:	Ivan Vasin <nisavid>
Component:	Runtime	Assignee:	platform-runtime-inbox <platform-runtime-inbox>
Status:	RESOLVED WORKSFORME	QA Contact:
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P3	CC:	pascal, sptaszkiewicz
Version:	4.0
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Windows 7
Whiteboard:

Description Ivan Vasin

2010-05-20 08:39:38 EDT

Build Identifier: M20100211-1343

i originally submitted this as an Aptana Studio bug [1], but a member of the Aptana Studio support staff informed me that this depends on functionality in Eclipse. the original report is duplicated below.

[1] https://aptanastudio.tenderapp.com/discussions/problems/1323-aptana-studio-should-install-plugins-per-user-even-when-installed-system-wide

i have an installation of Aptana Studio on Windows 7. i would like all users on this system to have access to this same installation. however, each user may desire (and should have the ability to install for him or herself) a separate collection of plugins. currently this seems to be impossible. i can install Aptana Studio to "C:/Program Files/Aptana Studio 2.0" to have a system-wide installation whose plugins can only be managed when Aptana is run as administrator (see [1]), or i can install Aptana Studio separately for each user who wants a unique collection of plugins or who is unable to obtain administrator privileges. the latter option almost provides the desired functionality, but it does so at the cost of wasted disk space and (if multiple users are running Aptana Studio simultaneously) probably wasted resources at runtime.

[1] https://aptanastudio.tenderapp.com/discussions/problems/620-missing-dependencies-when-installing-pdt-on-win-7-without-run-as-administrator

the best solution would be for Aptana Studio to provide capabilities for managing plugins either for the current user or for everyone who is using the current installation. the latter feature would require obtaining administrator privileges on recent versions of Windows and root privileges on Linux (preferably obtained via kdesudo, kdesu, gksudo, or a built-in sudo frontend). i think the root requirement also applies to Mac OS, but I am not a Mac OS developer, so I don't know for sure.

a second-best solution would be for Aptana to manage plugins for the current user when run as a non-administrator user and for everyone when run as an administrator. in Windows, i believe the environment variable %AppData% provides an appropriate location in both circumstances.

a third-best solution would be to eliminate the notion of system-wide plugins from Aptana Studio, installing all plugins in the current user's %AppData% (deliberately ignoring administrator privileges if they exist). this is quite limiting, but not as limiting as the current behavior.

the current behavior, in comparison, is to eliminate the notion of per-user plugins, installing all plugins in the "plugins" subdirectory of the Aptana Studio installation directory. this is the most limiting option because it prevents all users from installing plugins unless they run Aptana Studio as administrator (assuming that they are able to do so, which is not always the case). this option also ignores the conventional directory for application data files (%AppData% on Windows).

please implement a better option.

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Pascal Rapicault

2010-05-20 09:46:59 EDT

The scenario you are referring to is what is known as shared install and is supposed to work on Eclipse 3.5 and has been improved on Eclipse 3.6. It works as follows:
- An installation is available in the read only folder for the executing user. It contains a number of plug-ins
- The user has the ability to install more plug-ins without polluting the shared install (since he can't write into it) but he can not remove things from the "shared install".

Could you just grab a standard a recent 3.6 build (e.g. 3.6 RC1 from http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/) and see if the scenarios you care about are supported and for those that are not provide steps on how to create an environment to reproduce them. Thx.

Comment 2 Szymon Ptaszkiewicz

2012-09-18 06:53:56 EDT

Multi-user install scenarios are described here:

http://help.eclipse.org/indigo/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/reference/misc/multi_user_installs.html

We have been using multi-user install scenarios for a very long time and it works nicely if all requirements mentioned on that page are satisfied. Closing as WORKSFORME. If it does not work for you, please open a new bug providing exact steps that does not work for you.