macOS Non User Specific Symbolic Link

[rolandoislas]

I have been trying to create a non user specific symbolic link that points to ~/Library/Application Support.

I tried:

ln -s ~/Library/Application\ Support Drag\ Here\ to\ Install

This creates the symbolic link that works on my user, but when it is moved to another user it doesn't work. I thought I was creating it wrong, so I created one for the applications folder.

ln -s /Applications Drag\ Here\ to\ Install

The symbolic link for the Applications folder works. How can I get the first one to work without being user specific. Is this possible with a symbolic link? If not can somebody tell me of any other way I can achieve this.

 

[Hansr]

Symbolic links are always hardcoded, ~ will always be translated to /Users/YOU/ when creating them. What are you trying to accomplish precisely?

 

[rolandoislas]

Symbolic links are always hardcoded, ~ will always be translated to /Users/YOU/ when creating them. What are you trying to accomplish precisely?

I have created a dmg that contains files that must be placed in the users Application Support folder. I would like the symbolic link there so that the user can just drag the folder onto the link instead of going to ~/Library/Application Support.

I have tried using an installer package to accomplish this , but I cant seem to get it to install the files to "Application Support"

 

[Sydde]

Perhaps you could whip out a quick little app that does the job? Just something that takes dropped files (perhaps verifying that those are the right files) and puts them where you need them?

 

[rolandoislas]

I decided to go with the package installer. It doesn't have the convenience of drag and drop like a symbolic link would, but it gets the job done.