Using symbolic links inside OS X application bundles

Question

Hi,

I'm having a following problem. I have a bundle that has the following structure:

B.app/Contents/Frameworks -> link to an existing FS location [1]
B.app/Contents/Info.plist
B.app/Contents/MacOS
B.app/Contents/MacOS/AliasBinary -> link to an existing binary called ExistingBinary [2]
B.app/Contents/Resources -> link to an existing FS location [3]

Links [1] and [3] are just links to existing filesystem locations (i.e. directories) that are outside of the bundle. AliasBinary is a link to another application that I don't want to copy to the bundle, but would like to share it between many bundles. The latter binary is called ExistingBinary

The problem I'm having is that calling

$ open B.app

does open the application but only if the previous instance of ExistingBinary is not running. The same applies for double clicking on B.app. If there's no previous instance of ExistingBinary running then everything works correctly. Once ExistingBinary is started I can no longer start B.app by double clicking or by calling open B.app

Help!

EDIT:

The funny fact is that everything works if the bundle is inside /Applications but when I move it outside /Applications it just restores focus on the first instance of an app.

open -n helps, but that's not what I want :)

Answer 1

This may be the default launch services behaviour of not opening existing applications twice.

In Leopard, try

open -n B.app

or if you have the launch utility:

launch -m B.app