XDG Home Directoy Spec (was: XDG Base Directory Spec)

[C. Gatzemeier]

Am Montag, 9. Februar 2004 21:06 schrieb Alexander Neundorf:

> I guess I'm saying nothing new, but how about using to be standardized
> english directory names in the file system, and only translate them in the
> applications ?
>
> Like "music_"  becomes "Musik" in your prefered file manager. It might be
> confusing, but OTOH apple does it this way.

IMHO as anything that is _only_ supported on the "desktop level" this will 
unnessecary confuse new users at some point, and not be liked a lot by more 
experienced guys or administrators. The foundation for good Desktop solutions 
are good GNU/Linux solutions.

As the Base Dir Spec already shows, the solution to this is to define some 
standard (english) user specific environment variables that hold the actual 
locations. (Define $MAILDIR, $MUSICDIR in .bashrc which can also be edited 
through Desktop apps.)

If no evironment variable is specified it is probably best for an app to pop 
up with the ~/ directory and remember where the user goes from there.

Best Regards,
Christian