well-known user folders, a proposal

[Alexander Larsson]

On Thu, 2007-02-22 at 19:46 +0100, Benedikt Meurer wrote:
> > Yes, filenames have to be converted to utf8 to be displayed. But many
> > people still use non-utf8 filenames, so apps/libs have code to convert
> > from the specified filename encoding (for instance G_FILENAME_ENCODING
> > in gtk+) to utf8. If we create utf8 filenames in a system using some
> > other filename encoding these will not display correctly (said
> > conversion will fail). How is this good?
> 
> IIRC, g_filename_display_name() will accept UTF-8 even with non unicode
> filename encoding, so that should definitely work.

In the case where the utf8 string wasn't accidentally allowed as the
filename encoding (likely to happen for e.g. iso-8859-1) and wrongly
converted we would try to do the best by trying utf8 yes. But this is
hardly ideal. For instance, if we go the other way, the user typing a
filename in an entry, and then converting to a filename you won't be
able to type in the utf8-forced filenames (without some form of
escaping).

And that is in a modern gtk+ ui. Maybe they are using locale encoded
filenames so that their filenames display correctly in the terminal or
in some legacy app. These won't ever display the utf8 well.

I don't get why you dislike following the user specified encoding. Some
people choose to use a non-utf8 filename encoding, for whatever reason.
We just have to follow that. Sure, ideally we'd like everyone to use
utf8, and we can default to it, but we can't just claim everyone does
already and screw them over.

> Putting this into the icon naming spec sounds like a good idea, but it's
> nevertheless relevant for this spec (point to icon naming spec and
> suggest to use the appropriate icons).

I'm fine with the icon naming spec recommending icons for these.
Although its likely that gnome won't be using them, because we'll
probably be using emblems instead. However, if emblems are standardized
we could standardize the emblem names too.

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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
                   alexl at redhat.com    alla at lysator.liu.se 
He's a hate-fuelled coffee-fuelled werewolf fleeing from a secret government 
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