Evince "home directory"

[Ed Greshko]

Aaron Konstam wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 21:29 -0600, Frank Cox wrote: 
>   
>> When I open a document from Evince (File-Open) I always get a window that says
>> this:
>>
>>  "The folder contents could not be displayed Error stating file
>> '/home/frankcox/Documents': No such file or directory
>>
>> I don't have a directory called Documents.
>>
>> Is the default directory name hard-coded into Evince?  I can't find any way to
>> change it to a directory that I actually do have so I won't see this error
>> message every time.
>>
>> I could put a symbolic link named Documents in my home directory but I don't
>> really want to... 
>>
>>     
> What you say is strange. Documents is one of the directories created by
> the system in every home directory. I just tried this. evince will find
> any appropriate files in the Documents sub-directory in your home
> directory and then give you the choice to go to other directories to
> look for file to view. 
>   
Actually probably not so strange if your home directories were created
in previous version that didn't create a Documents directory upon user
creation and you've been doing upgrades instead of fresh installs.  Or,
you've been doing fresh installs but keep a separate /home partition
that you don't touch during installs.
> So I guess evince has going to the Documents directory first built in.
> create a Documents directory in your home directory and all will be
> well. 
>   
I, for one, am resistant to change along with not liking the "Windows
concept" of manipulating me to putting my "documents" in a Documents
directory and my "downloads" into a Download directory.  I like every
application to start in my $HOME directory.  So, doing what you suggest
doesn't make things "well" for me.

Besides, things are done in an inconsistent manner.  For example, if I
start "gnome-terminal"  from the menus in a Gnome session it will start
in $HOME.  But, if I start it from the menus in a KDE session it will
start in $HOME/Documents.  To change the behavior I need to edit the
menu item and change the "Work Path" since someone thought it would be a
good idea to default to that directory.

Starting evince from the menus results in the same behavior from within
a KDE session or a Gnome session.  But, editing the evince menu item and
changing the "Work Path" has no effect.  That would probably confuse the
hell out of many folks since when you first go to edit the "Work Path"
it is set to $HOME/Documents so the logical assumption is that you've
found the right place to change it.

So, one has to "know" which applications take their cue from xdg
settings and which ones from menu settings and maybe which ones use
their own methods to define default paths.

-- 
You are standing on my toes. Guess Who! http://tinyurl.com/mc4xe7

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