Ah, I see.
Would a renaming like this also work?
Bash:
$ cd /opt/local/bin
$ mv ffmpeg7 ffmpeg
$
If I understand it correctly, this means the paths should be
defined in one single place, instead of having to change them everywhere (in all previous scripts etc).
This is what my .bash_profile looks like. Macports appears to have set the path correctly:
Bash:
$ more ~/.bash_profile
# Setting PATH for Python 3.11
# The original version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH
# Setting PATH for Python 3.11
# The original version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH
# MacPorts Installer addition on 2025-02-01_at_17:33:42: adding an appropriate PATH variable for use with MacPorts.
export PATH="/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH"
# Finished adapting your PATH environment variable for use with MacPorts.
export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"
$
That worked a lot better!
I should probably get a better understanding of the Bash shell as you suggested, for the above problems and in general.
The problem is that I sometimes come across apps that need something extra to be installed which is beyond the usual Mac apps. At one stage I had to install Python (for a Firefox plugin I think), and for something else I needed Perl (I forget what that was for). There are probably others as well.
I was hoping that with Homebrew/Macports I could "leave the tricky stuff to the experts", but it seems it's not that easy. And now some of my existing Automator services scripts can't find EXIFtool any more.
Maybe there's no simple way to solve this other than install apps that are installable for novices (as
@bogdanw suggested) and leave the trickier ones to Macports.
