[TxMt] Re: Textmate bundle disappeared

[Charilaos Skiadas]

On Mar 2, 2007, at 3:51 PM, Bruno wrote:

> Steve, my fresh install consisted of a new download and deleted  
> prefs, rather than a whole new account, but as I said, finding and  
> dragging the Textmate bundle from Pristine Copy to Bundles did the  
> trick.

For future reference, "fresh install" means also removing everything  
from /Library/Application Support/TextMate and ~/Library/Application  
Support/TextMate.

Your problems after your attempt at cleanup where arising because  
this was not actually the case.

The bundle mechanism seems a bit daunting at first, but it is  
actually fairly logical. There are four locations where bundles/ 
bundle items may reside:

1) Inside the TextMate application
2) In /Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles
3) In ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles, where ~ is the  
current user's home directory
4) ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Pristine Copy/Bundles

TextMate ships with a number of bundles, so that someone could start  
using it immediately. It contains the current version of those  
bundles at the time of packaging, and it doesn't contain all the  
bundles, just the most often used ones.

If you want a newer version of a bundle, you have the option of  
checking things out from the repository. It is recommended that you  
do that in /Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles.

Now, each user might edit/add bundle items, and those changes are  
recorded in ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles. This  
contains typically "delta" files, that record the local differences  
to the command, for instance if you change a shortcut or something.

And finally we come to the Pristine Copy directory. When you get a  
new bundle not via the repository, but via downloading a .tmBundle  
file, then this initial version of this bundle is stored in this  
directory. It is supposed to be the bundle in its "pristine state",  
and any modifications you do to the bundle are recorded in ~/Library/ 
Application Support/TextMate/Bundles. so you could return to that  
pristine state by removing these local modifications. It is supposed  
to be used only for bundles not shipping with TM, since there is  
already a "pristine state" for those bundles inside the TM application.

All this is probably explained somewhere in the wiki and/or manual,  
but I didn't really feel like looking it up. Hope this makes things  
clearer.

> Bruno

Haris Skiadas
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Hanover College