Arthur Pemberton wrote:
On 6/13/07, David Timms <dtimms@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A potential goal for Fedora:
Cleanup user settings configuration
For a long time applications creates a {hidden} .mysetting file in the
user's home directory, if multiple config/settings under a
.myapp/.various files.
I would hate this
That is the already the current state of play -or do I misread you ?
I think this should be tidied up by creating a single directory at the
users home folder to store all setting/configs that apps make.
- The folder should not be hidden.
I would hate this even more
Is this hate directed toward the visibility, or to the idea of having
all settings in a subfolder of the user's home dir ?
- It should have a default text file indicating that it contains hidden
files that store settings for installed applications.
why?
1. So newsers know what it is and why it is there.
2. So newsers don't try to erase it.
- It should be well named: configuration | config | application_config ?
seems unnecessary
To name it well ? Or to even have such a structure ?
- All packages to use this folder
good luck with that
For all I know this location is just some system call, environment
variable or something - does your experience show this would in fact
require individual adjustment of each app ?
I see some problems:
- breaks FHStandard ?
- every app would need to have a one time adjustment and package
rebuilt ?
You make that sound trivial
Only because I haven't the foggiest what it would involve.
Some advantages:
- not mixing user data folders and application config in the same top
level {user home} folder.
I guess that's based on your point of view. These are user specific
configurations, which I consider to be part of my user data
To some extent I would agree: eg thunderbird config and email storage
are linked.
- less files to read / show / search when apps ask for the home dir file
list
I'm sorry if Gnome's dialog shows you everything by default,
but some of us use KDE, and it doesn't do that, so that's a non-issue
No nautilus / gnome dialogs don't by default, I happen to set it this
way. It is how I realized there is just so much crap stored in the user
home folder.
Mine has over 2000 files. About 14 directories and 50 are files I put
there. Then there is 77 .folders and remainder what seems to be .config
files for various apps, and temp files of some sort:
.serverauth.2268 and similar dating back 8+ months.
Perhaps there should be more adherence to using the /tmp folder, or a
new special users/tmp folder that gets cleared each time the machine is
booted, or the user logged in ?
- easily move/copy all user configs to backup or a different machine
cp -a ~/.*
How do you do that in KDE, if it doesn't show the files ? Would you be
able to configure a .textconfigfile from the filesystem viewer ? Would a
newser be able to work it out without guidance ?
I realize that these ideas are probably so adverse to age-old unix ways
that it may not be possible to actually change it for existing apps ?
DaveT.
--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
