Feature request: place VMs in bundles

D

drtimhill

Member
This is a pretty minor feature request, but I think it would be nice to have.

A couple of other emulators/vms I've seen on the Mac place all the files for a VM (HDD image, configuration settings etc.) inside a Mac bundle/package, rather than in a folder the way parallels currently does.

I realize you guys are cross-platform and this doesn't work for Windows/Linux hosts, but on the Mac this is certainly a more convenient packaging method, as it makes the VM look like a single managed unit ("file") under the Finder.

File this one under "nice to have" ? :)

--Tim
 
drtimhill said:
This is a pretty minor feature request, but I think it would be nice to have.

A couple of other emulators/vms I've seen on the Mac place all the files for a VM (HDD image, configuration settings etc.) inside a Mac bundle/package, rather than in a folder the way parallels currently does.

I realize you guys are cross-platform and this doesn't work for Windows/Linux hosts, but on the Mac this is certainly a more convenient packaging method, as it makes the VM look like a single managed unit ("file") under the Finder.

File this one under "nice to have" ? :)

--Tim
Click to expand...

Actually, I think this is much more than a "nice to have" type of suggestion. I'd say it's more of a "must have."

Reasons:

- You could double-click a VM in the Finder to open it, if it were a bundled document.
- Reduces the "fragility" of a VM greatly. It's far too easy to inadvertently break a VM right now, simply by moving or otherwise modifying one of the files in a VM's folder.
- Makes it easier to copy or backup a VM in the Finder, as a bundled document could have its own icon, and appear as any other document.
- It's the right way to package something like a VM on the Mac OS.

I'm probably forgetting a few, and I may not be fully aware of any cross-platform issues, but my opinion is that it's a must-do-before-ship.

Meanwhile, at the pace this product is evolving, it may only take the developers a couple of hours to do...

Evan Gross
Author, Spell Catcher X
(Mac software developer since 1984)
 
Thunder said:
- You could double-click a VM in the Finder to open it, if it were a bundled document.
Click to expand...

Document binding for *.pvs files for Finder is already presented since beta6 - it is already possible to "click" on your vm configuration (sure not a bundle, but useful)
 
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