If portable applications are to be a reality on Mac OS X and to work properly (not just a hack), it's almost certainly something Apple will have to implement at the NSUserDefaults level. So seperating the preferences for a single application might only partially get you where you want to go. On Mac OS X, system services and applications are much more likely to be integrated in some way. Three: Preferences aren't not necessary an island. This sort of thing is completely not okay for a consumer computer. This is how unix/linux worked for years and years, and arguably it still works this way in some places. Two: We know what happens when developers start implementing their own preferences scheme. Users don't want their application icon to just "break." It's much nicer (though still not perfect) to just move the plist file and re-launch. It is suppose to remain prestine at all times so that the user doesn't have to dig into the package, traverse various directories and start mucking around with things they don't understand. If a particular setting gets munged or the plist becomes corrupted somehow, you've got an app that won't work. The downside is that the preferences are always with the app. One: Where do you put the preferences file? Some might think the application package is a good place, because then it means the prefs are always with the app. Now a developer could step aside all of this and implement their own preferences system, but there are some things to thing about. It also means that preferences are neatly integrated with Cocoa bindings. This means a lot less bugs and a uniform preferences format. NSUserDefaults abstracts you from all of that. In Cocoa and CoreFoundation, developers don't have to think about where or how preferences are stored. It's possible for developers to do this, it just opens up a can of worms. That is, applications that can be carried around, complete with the user's preferences, on a USB thumb drive. The Unofficial Apple Weblog asks why Mac OS X doesn't have portable applications.
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