Don't just prepend the git path.

[rakete]

In cmder/vendor/init.bat, you first check if %ProgramFiles%\Git exists, and then prepend its /bin, /usr/bin and /usr/share/vim/vim74 to PATH. This approach has two downsides:

1. Git explicitly asks the user if he wants to include its /bin and /usr/bin in PATH when it is installed, it does so because including the path shadows Windows own find.exe and makes it unusable. I think it even defaults to not including those paths and only includes %ProgramFiles%\Git\cmd.
2. Users may order their path so that the executables in %ProgramFiles%\Git\usr\bin are shadowed by other executables on purpose, e.g. by something like https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow. Well, at least I do that, and prepending those directories then creates an issue where I can't launch the vim I have installed under %ProgramFiles%\Vim, but only the one supplied by Git.

Personally I've just worked around my issue by commenting out the line that prepends to PATH. But I think it would be better if you'd only prepend %ProgramFiles%\Git\cmd, if anything at all. /bin, /usr/bin and /vim74 should be included by the user in his PATH when he wants them and not inserted by his terminal emulator.

Maybe there is some easy check to test if git.exe is already in PATH? Then you could check that and then only prepend %ProgramFiles%\Git\cmd if really necessary, instead of the whole git environment.

[jankatins]

Just FYI: the development version now appends the additional commands https://github.com/cmderdev/cmder/blob/development/vendor/init.bat#L46-L93 The additional commands are still included but e.g. find is not shadowed.

[Stanzilla]

^ this. Does that fix all your complaints, @rakete?

[rakete]

Yes, appending the path would probably solve my problem.

Although personally I would still say that it would be better to try to minimize any kind of modification of the users environment. There will always be the assumption on the users side that whatever is his PATH outside of cmder, will be the PATH inside of cmder.

There is also a maximum length of PATH that you might run into with this approach (varies between Windows versions, Windows 10 seems to finally address this problem), see: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1880321/why-does-the-260-character-path-length-limit-exist-in-windows

[jankatins]

@rakete: At least I came to cmder with the opposite assumption: finally getting proper unix commands :-)

[DamnedScholar]

There will always be the assumption on the users side that whatever is his PATH outside of cmder, will be the PATH inside of cmder.

If this assumption exists, it should probably be fixed with clearer communication, maybe via documentation or an on-install or on-first-run message.