Recent versions of OS X enforce read-only permissions on the Library folder at the root of your startup disc. Although this new security practice is great for end users, it can prevent you from saving modifications to your own products, if they are installed in the standard location:

/Library/Application Support/Noise Industries

The solution is to modify the default access privileges so that you can modify and save your products without errors.

• Select the Library folder at the root of your startup volume.
• Bring up Finder’s “Get Info” window (Cmd-I).
• Authenticate as an administrator in order to change the permissions.
• Leave the default settings unchanged, which means the “system” user has “Read & Write” privileges, while the “wheel” and “everyone” groups have “Read Only” permissions.
• Add a new user (or an existing group to which you belong) to the list, and give the new user/group “Read & Write” permissions. For example, you could add back the “admin” group and give it “Read & Write” privileges to the Library folder:
• It may be necessary to propagate the same settings to the entire directory tree by selecting the Apply to enclosed items… command from the action menu:

When developing a product that is already shipping with the FxFactory installer, it might be rather easy to overlook a nasty problem: the installer may overwrite any precious copy of that same product you were actively working on!

The installer doesn't know the difference between an editable and release version of a product. It simply copies files to certain locations of the system. If an existing file/folder has the same name of a file/folder that is being installed, it will be overwritten without notice¹⁾.

In other words, if your editable product is called “ACME Widgets.fxpack”, and the installer also contains a release copy of “ACME Widgets.fxpack”, it will happily and brutally overwrite your copy.

There are a couple ways to avoid this problem:

1) Install any products under development in your home folder, instead.

Move the product from:

/Library/Application Support/Noise Industries

to:

~/Library/Application Support/Noise Industries

The installer doesn't touch your home folder. You may end up with duplicates, but you won't lose any files. The duplicates are easily removed once the installation is complete. You can Cmd-click on any product icon to reveal its location in the Finder.

Remember that the ~/Library folder isn't visible by default on Lion. You'll have to navigate to it via the Terminal, or open it using the Finder's “Go To…” command.

2) Keep the product in the main products folder, but assign a different name to it:

Suppose that the release version of “ACME Widgets”, packaged with the FxFactory installer, uses the following two filenames:

ACME Widgets.fxpack
ACME Widgets.fxtemplates

You can rename the development copies to:

ACME Widgets BETA.fxpack
ACME Widgets BETA.fxtemplates

The objective, again, is to use a name that won't collide with the files brutally copied by our installer.

Please remember that the filename you assign to a product isn't preserved during a “textbook” installation (i.e. if you have the product sitting on your desktop and double-click it). Suppose that you double-click the product named:

~/Desktop/MY OWN COPY of ACME Widgets BETA (stay away from here you nasty installer).fxpack

FxFactory will normalize the filename as it copies it to the install location. It will be installed as:

/Library/Application Support/Noise Industries/ACME Widgets.fxpack

That is a recipe for disaster, since the product now has the official installation filename, again! So be extra careful after installing one of your own products. Make sure that any files you care about do not have filenames that are bound to be overwritten by our installer.