[Xfce-bugs] [XFCE 0000257]: $HOME/.config/xfce4/
xfce-bugs at xfce.org
xfce-bugs at xfce.org
Wed Jul 14 07:48:15 CEST 2004
A BUGNOTE has been added to this bug.
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http://bugs.xfce.org/view_bug_page.php?f_id=0000257
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Reporter: milky
Handler:
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Project: XFCE
Bug ID: 0000257
Category: general
Reproducibility: N/A
Severity: feature
Priority: normal
Status: new
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Date Submitted: 2004-07-13 02:26 GMT
Last Modified: 2004-07-14 05:48 GMT
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Summary: $HOME/.config/xfce4/
Description:
I was a bit amused as I read today in the freshmeat newsletter:
"... A priority is adherence to standards, specifically those
defined at freedesktop.org."
since XFCE misses the IMO most important (ok, maybe not) standardization
effort of freedesktop: the use of the $HOME/.config/ directory to get
rid of the hundreds of (not really hidden) dotfiles in users home dirs.
http://freedesktop.org/Standards/config-spec
Actually that recommendation talks about some XDG_whatever variable
and "~/.config/" only as fallback, but nevertheless - that's what I'm
asking for.
Sure XFCE has already some new environment variable (every program
has a different!) one could use to redirect config file scans to
("XFCE4_HOME" or so?) and I could eventually hack that myself into
the source. But I'd actually like to see this supported by default.
There is no need to abandon "~/.xfce4/" now or completely, but the
libs/apps should also check for existence of "~/.config/xfce4/" and
use that when it's there (the old "~/.xfce4/" furthermore only as
fallback).
Some users may prefer to keep it by its current name, others (me)
may like the important config files in _one_ directory, so for
example automated backup scripts could more easily find it.
Please think about it. And it's probably easy to code in anyhow!
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olivier - 2004-07-13 05:46 GMT
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- Such sarcastic comments tend to make me in a bad mood!
- What you are talking about is not a spec, it's a plan!
- Xfce doesn't use gconf and won't unless gconf becomes a standard
- All config files are in $HOME/.xfce4/ ie its in one directory!
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olivier - 2004-07-13 06:11 GMT
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BTW, I think using "XFCE4HOME" will do the trick (although not all plugins
make use of it in 4.0.6, notable exceptions being xfwm4 and iconbox
plugins - That ashould be fixed in CVS)
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milky - 2004-07-13 13:42 GMT
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Wasn't meant to be sarcastic or something that way, it just read somehow
funny from my point of view :)
(I had only this weekend got a copy of the xfce4 tarball, and was pretty
happy to see a bugfix release [cropped icons] only two days later; that is
I've almost converted from many years of using blackbox/openbox).
Btw, I'm also really thankful that you don't use gconf (not really useful
thing as of yet, and there better / more lightweight alternatives).
I know you only put one dot directory (.xfce4) into the $HOME dir, but
still this adds to the many others that shouldn't be there. That's because
many other 'open file' dialogs often simply show _all_ files, and so home
dirs get really poorly browseable over time. I found myself constantly
deleting a few, but it's almost like www popups these days (if it wasn't
that I use mozilla/fox ;)
Whatever, you aren't interested in that ~/.config/ thing (plan or spec) at
all? Could it be made working anyhow, or would every xfce extension need
to be patched - I thought that mcs* lib was for config access?
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huysmans - 2004-07-13 13:54 GMT
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Put this in your ~/.bash_profile:
export XFCE4HOME=/home/milky/.config/xfce4
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milky - 2004-07-13 23:50 GMT
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Jasper, thanks for the personalized example; but I actually already knew
about how to do that for most my apps. The only problem I see is that this
way I only exchange home dir dotfile cluttering for environment var
cluttering. That's what my bashrc then needed to look like if I really
wanted to get rid of some files:
export XFCE4HOME="$HOME/.config/xfce4/"
alias centericq="centericq -d $HOME/.config/centericq/"
export INPUTRC="$HOME/.config/inputrc"
alias mutt="mutt -F $HOME/.config/muttrc"
export HISTFILE="$HOME/.config/bash/history"
and so on... Also I wouldn't really trust that setup, even I could imagine
it would work better for XFCE - especially since I could put something
like this in in the xinitrc:
XFCE4HOME="$HOME/.config/xfce4/" xfce-mcs-manager
XFCE4HOME="$HOME/.config/xfce4/" xfwm --daemon
XFCE4HOME="$HOME/.config/xfce4/" xfdesktop &
XFCE4HOME="$HOME/.config/xfce4/" xfcel-panel
But whatever, I'd still say that's only a workaround.
Btw, the link from the first post didn't actually point to the real
specification (it's not only a plan or idea anymore). This is the thing I
was actually talking about:
http://freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec
http://freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-0.6.html
The spec talks about $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and "$HOME/.config/" as its default,
and how apps should throw files into it. I still believe this is a great
idea, it's only sad that this never got part of the FHS.
Please, please, please reconsider adding some general (as fallback)
support for it. There were some notes about your session manager on your
WordPress site, and it actually read like that part having already support
for a ~/.config/xfce4/ dir in it.
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huysmans - 2004-07-14 05:48 GMT
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AFAIK no-one is using this yet, so it won't help you much anyway. I'm not
against this on principle -- in fact, I do like the general idea -- but,
it is by no means needed for proper operation of xfce, so it is very low
priority.
Remember, the important specifications are the ones that promote
interoperability, like the EMWH and XSETTINGS specifications, this one
buys us nothing.
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