User directories integration - request for help

[Alexander Larsson]

On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 10:53 +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:

> > There are other uses too, like
> > default bookmarks (in file manager, file selector, etc). 
> 
> They could create the directory when the user click on the icon?

I don't think this is largely different from creating them at login.
Many dirs will be created at first login anyway (Desktop, Templates,
maybe Public), and others will be created as you go. Seems very similar
to the create-at-login approach except the code needs to be duplicated
all over the place and the homedirectory is slowly modified over time
instead of just once.

> > I'll also say (and I know some people will hate me for this) that I
> > think a lot of unexperienced users will like having some initial
> > structure to their homedirectory. Experienced users can set it up how
> > they want (and do!), but unexperienced users are unlikely to start their
> > experimenting with a new OS by setting up a homedirectory structure.
> 
> Unexperienced users don't want something specific. Except if you think
> that what unexperienced users want is what is in windows.

Ah, the old "you just want us to be windows" argument. Lets just say we
disagree on this point without having to fall into name-calling.

> Adding something (non dot file or dot dir) in the home directory is
> bad design, especially when there is another solution.

Its pretty bad to create visible folders in the homedir that expose the
internals of an applications. However, things are different if you're
designing an application for the explicit purpose of creating visible
directories in the home directory. We can of course disagree on whether
such an application should exist or not...

> How can you do 'Directories specified in your config file that has been
> removed will be changed in the config file to point to $HOME.' without
> something magic?

While we scan the list of the users already configured directories we
call stat() to see if they are stale, if so we reset it to something
that is not stale. How is an if and a stat "magic".

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl at redhat.com    alla at lysator.liu.se 
He's a lonely albino matador living undercover at Ringling Bros. Circus. She's 
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