I'm quite familiar with man, thanks, but not being an OSX techie I don't know what a bundle is and why you might use it instead of an app's name.
...I now know what a bundle is but I'm still unsure as to why an app can be identified in several ways and why those ways might not refer to the same thing.
You've probably seen this.
[NSBundle | Apple Developer Documentation](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsbundle)
The bundle ID is the most specific identifier of a particular build
Thanks, good information there.
I'm still unclear as to why initiating /Applications/calibre.app and open -b net.kovidgoyal.calibre give different results as they are both referring to the same thing.
Or are they?
BTW, the system log contains the following
Nov 25 14:39:56 Ts-iMac com.apple.xpc.launchd[1] (com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000016.calibre[14204]): Service exited with abnormal code: 2
when calibre.app is launched using the problematical KM action. Does this give some clue as to what the problem is?
I wonder if the launchd entry is pointing to an earlier/other build/instance – possibly now deleted ?
The open -b command is not tied to the actual location of the application. It works as long as open can find the application somewhere.
Unfortunately I don't know what that system log error means.
Got it! Thanks!
Hey @tiffle,
Well – names change but Bundle IDs generally remain the same.
Not having to provide a hard path to a given resource is handy.
Different versions of the same application might have different Bundle IDs but the same name.
Like:
com.latenightsw.ScriptDebugger5
com.latenightsw.ScriptDebugger6
com.latenightsw.ScriptDebugger7
All of these are named "Script Debugger" by default, but I can address them specifically via their Bundle IDs.
A user might need multiple versions of apps on their machine for testing or for other reasons.
There are various reasons why Bundle IDs are useful, but for most users of macOS it's just esoterica.
-Chris
That's a great explanation... it clears up a lot! Thanks!