49 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
# Frequently Asked Questions
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## What is a Cask?
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A `Cask` is like a `Formula` in Homebrew except it describes how to download
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and install a binary application. To learn how to write a Cask, see
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[CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md). For a complete reference, see
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[CASK_LANGUAGE_REFERENCE.md](doc/CASK_LANGUAGE_REFERENCE.md).
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## What's the status of this project? Where's it headed?
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The idea is for each Cask to encapsulate and automate the story of how a given
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application should be installed. Join us in building up a community-maintained
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collection of Casks that is striving to become the standard way that hackers
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install Mac apps.
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## Can I contribute?
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__Yes, yes, yes!__ Please fork/pull request to update Casks, add features and
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clean up documentation! Anything you can do to help out is very welcome.
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It's also [__pretty darn easy__ to create Casks](CONTRIBUTING.md), so
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please build more of them for the software you use. And if homebrew-cask doesn't
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support the packaging format of your software, please [open an issue](https://github.com/phinze/homebrew-cask/issues)
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and we can get it working together.
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The whole idea is to build a _community-maintained_ list of easily installable
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packages, so the community part is important! Every little bit counts.
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## Why use Homebrew's Cellar? Why not just manage apps directly in Applications?
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The short answer to this would be: for the same reason that Homebrew does not
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install applications directly into /usr/local.
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We don't know up-front precisely what files are going to be in the
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dmg/zip/tgz/etc, so it's really helpful to have a place to dump all of them
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safely, then iterate through and act on the files we care about. For an `.app` file
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this may be symlinking it into `~/Applications` or `/Applications`, for a `.pkg` file
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this might be running the installer. For a Screen Saver it may be symlinking it
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into the appropriate directory for it to show up in System Preferences.
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The reason we implement this project on top of Homebrew was based on a belief
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that their methodology for managing applications has a lot of merit. We'd
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prefer to try and work things so that we can keep ourselves Homebrewy both in
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implementation and idioms. Trying to manage all of `~/Applications` would move
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the project more towards a standalone system, which would mean reimplementing a
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lot of the Homebrew stuff we lean on now.
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