User directories integration - request for help

[Nicolas Mailhot]

Le Lun 19 mars 2007 12:01, Alexander Larsson a écrit :
> On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 11:42 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 11:13 +0100, Alexander Larsson wrote:
>> > On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 10:51 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> >
>> > > > It very much does. All applications using the gtk file selector
>> will
>> > > > have some default folders as file selector bookmars, and *all*
>> > > > applications get translated filenames for common directories.
>> > >
>> > > And all other applications, such as gui-less apps will be broken.
>> >
>> > How are they broken? The only thing I can see that is possible to
>> break
>> > is if some application hardcodes ~/Desktop.
>> Well, how is your local backup script to collect all music files from
>> ~/Musique?
>
> If you just want to backup the directory named "Musique" then it will
> work fine just as before. If you want a special sort of backup script
> that backs up the special MUSIC directory it would go:
>
> test -f ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/user-dirs.dirs && source
> ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/user-dirs.dirs
> tar czvf /tmp/music.tar.gz ${XDG_MUSIC_DIR}

Add looping to handle multi-user setups, and you get the magnitude of
problems to replicate a simple ls /home/*/.config/xdg-dir/music/

> Thats a sort of weird backup script to have though. Backup scripts are
> typically personalized for your homedir, and can hardcode whatever
> structure you use.

Just like GUI apps are typically personalized for your homedir, and can
hardcode whatever structure you use...

Wait, wasn't the whole point making accesses to common stuff standardised?

You're stopping midways there. Why do you assume only single-user GUI
stuff needs streamlined access to your directories?

> But, this is not my main disagreement. My main disagreement is on the
> idea that it is more important that you need two lines less code in some
> script than that the users personal files should be in a language they
> can understand.

You can have it both ways with english symlinks to localised "real"
directories.

> And translation of the filenames in the UI will *never* be complete.

More reason *not* to pre-create directories with faulty names, and ask
users on creation what they would like to call their directories.

> There will always be 3rd party applications that don't translate the
> names,

And apps that won't parse your config file but can be pointed at a default
symlink


-- 
Nicolas Mailhot