This page describes the terms that you will find used throughout the OverrideAudit documentation.

This is meant to be a high level overview of these terms. If you're not familiar with what packages and overrides in Sublime Text are, the overrides page contains more detailed information on these topics.

Packed Package

A Packed package is a package that is contained in a sublime- package file. This is actually just a zip file with a different extension. The name of the package file provides the name of the package itself.

This is a convenient way to install a package because all of the files and resources that make up the package are contained in a single file.

The package file Python.sublime-package is a packed package that provides the contents of the Python package, which provides support for writing Python programs in Sublime Text.

Unpacked Package

An Unpacked package is a package that is stored as files in a subdirectory of the the Sublime Text Packages directory, which is accessible from within Sublime by selecting Preferences > Browse Packages... from the menu. The name of the package comes from the name of the directory the package is stored in.

The contents of the directory Packages\User are considered to be the contents of a package named User

Shipped Package

A Shipped Package is a Packed package that ships with Sublime Text itself. These packages provide the core functionality of Sublime Text, and are stored in a special location alongside the Sublime executable.This makes them common to all users of Sublime on the same computer.

The shipped package Default.sublime-package provides the set of default key bindings, settings, menu entries and so on that all other packages modify.

Installed Package

An Installed Package is a Packed package that is stored in the Installed Packages directory, which is one directory level above the Packages directory used to store Unpacked packages.

Please note that this does not mean that an Unpacked package is in some way not installed; the terminology is purely meant to make a distinction between packages that are installed in a specific format and location.

Package Control is installed as an Installed Package, and many packages that it installs are also installed in this manner.

Override

An Override is a file or files which override similarly named files contained in a package. When an override is in effect, Sublime will ignore the original packaged version of the file and use the override file in its place.

This can be used to modify package behaviour to your liking, but is dangerous in that if the packaged version of the file is modified by the package author, the override will continue to mask those changes and improvements.

Detecting when this is happening is one of the core features of OverrideAudit.

Simple Override

A Simple override is the most common type of override, in which a package is partially unpacked and then modified. This means that there is a directory in the Sublime Packages directory named the same as an existing Shipped or Installed package which contains files of the same names as those within the sublime-package file.

The file Packages\Python\Python.sublime-build is a simple override which causes Sublime to ignore the Shipped version of the file from the Python package, allowing you to modify how Python is built.

Complete Override

A Complete override is less common than a Simple override. This variety of override occurs when a Packed package with the same name as a Shipped package is installed into the Installed Packages folder. When this happens, Sublime will ignore the shipped version of the package and use the other version instead, as if it was the package that was shipped with Sublime.

The File Installed Packages\Python.sublime-package is a complete override of the Shipped Python package. As far as Sublime is concerned, this is the Python package that provides all functionality for this language.

Expired Override

This terminology is unique to OverrideAudit, and is used to indicate that an override (either simple or complete) is overriding a file that has been updated at the source (e.g. by Sublime text being upgraded or the package author modifying it).

When this happens Sublime does not warn you on its own, and will continue to use your overrides, potentially causing you to miss out on important bug fixes or new features.

The tools in OverrideAudit are designed to help warn you when this is happening and allow you to easily see what has changed so you can decide how best to address the situation.

Unknown Override

This terminology is unique to OverrideAudit, and is used to indicate that there are files in an Unpacked package folder that do not exist in the Packed version of the package.

Such a file is not technically an override (as it is not overriding anything) but is still considered a part of the package by Sublime Text nonetheless. Overrides of this type may be the result of adding additional files to the package or the result of file that were previously overridden being removed from the Shipped version of the package.

The Override Report and Bulk Diff Report can display overrides of this type in that report via the ignore_unknown_overrides setting (the default is to enable this feature) to give you an indication of when this is happening. This can act as a reminder that new files have been added to the package or that overrides exist which may no longer be needed because the source package has removed the file.