brew bundle vs brew cask install: Apps on and off the App Store

[kevinSuttle]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install an app that is available both in the official App Store, and by the developer (preferably from the App Store for the purposes of this bug)
2. Install homebrew-bundle
3. Install homebrew-cask
4. Create a Brewfile and list the app you chose in step 1. e.g. Skitch.

Example

$ brew cask install skitch
Warning: A Cask for skitch is already installed. Add the "--force" option to force re-install.

Brewfile
cask 'skitch'

$ brew bundle
Succeeded in installing skitch
Success: 1 Fail: 0

[kevinSuttle]

Hm. I noticed that in the case of Skitch, the .app is linked to the ~/Applications directory, so it wouldn't be overwriting the version installed to /Applications, anyway. Perhaps that's how homebrew-bundle is designed? Instead of overwriting, it just links to the $HOME directory?

[kevinSuttle]

Ah, yes, homebrew-cask symlinks into ~/Applications by default.
--appdir=/Applications flag is needed to override.

[MikeMcQuaid]

Yep, that's a cask default we can't really tweak, sorry!

[muescha]

we can't really tweak

but there are some solutions:

1) environment variable

you can set the appdir in an environment variable and then run brew bundle:

# Specify your defaults in this environment variable
export HOMEBREW_CASK_OPTS="--appdir=/Applications --caskroom=/etc/Caskroom"

see usage of options

2) bundle dsl

but is not this command of homebrew bundle just for overriding the cask options?

cask_args appdir: '/Applications'

[MikeMcQuaid]

@muescha Yep, those are both options you can use but Homebrew Bundle can't pick one automatically. Thanks!

[kevinSuttle]

Why can't the environment variable default to /Applications?

[MikeMcQuaid]

@kevinSuttle We defer to Cask's default/configuration here.