well-known user folders, a proposal

[Kent Schumacher]

On 02/23/2007 07:30 AM, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-02-23 at 12:13 +0100, Stanislav Brabec wrote:
>> Alexander Larsson píše v Pá 23. 02. 2007 v 08:52 +0100:
>>> You might want to change it yourself, even if its not done
>>> automatically. i.e. I can imagine a "make this the default location for
>>> photos" menu item in a file manager.
>> I have been thinking more about it. I am not against localized names,
>> but I am against automatic creation of any visible directories.
> 
> And I can understand such a viewpoint. Actually I'm pretty sure a lot of
> people will dislike these directories being created. However, the people
> who get irritated about things like that are generally in a category of
> users who can handle changing settings to what they like. In this case,
> all they have to do is to delete the directories once (or disable the
> whole thing in one config file). Or if they like the approach but have a
> different folder setup they can easily set that up (even easier if the
> desktop has a gui for this, but thats not strictly necessary).
> 
> The reason you want to do this by default even if some people get pissed
> is that for a lot of people this is a really nice feature, and many
> wouldn't ever notice or use it unless it was on by default. They won't
> to look for it, or how to set it up. So, if we get things working for
> these people with zero manual work, and make it very easy for others to
> disable or configure it I think we have a net win.
> 
>> It would be nice to be able to control these directories from GUI, and
>> even initial creation should show GUI (and rationale) for it and a way
>> for disabling some or all of them (and re-enabling later). But it's an
>> implementation note above the scope of your proposal.
> 
> Of course, above and beyond the lowest level of standardization each
> desktop will integrate this in the GUI in whatever way they think is
> good. I don't want to specify how that should work though, its up to
> each desktop and is likely to change in the future as we have new ideas
> and get feedback.
> 
> I mostly agree with what you write, although I think its a bit overly
> focused on the "default file selector" directory. That is one use for
> these directories. However, in almost all cases the best default
> directory for a fileselector is "what you used last time", so the
> default directory things is more of a default default directory and
> shouldn't be over-ephasized. Another useful thing is for applications to
> add places to the file selector, so even if rhythmbox starts the
> fileselector in the last opened location there is an easy-to-find
> shortcut to the music dir. They could also be used to add places to
> things like file manager and panel menus. 
> 
> Also, changing cwd automatically like that isn't really a good idea.
> That affects all sorts of things like where coredumps are saved, how
> relative pathnames are resolved, etc.
> 

I have to take exception to this - the business user *has* to be
considered as well as the home user.  Creating all these directories by
default is user *and* admin hostile.  Admins like myself deploy desktops
for huge numbers of users, and every time something gets added to the
home folder it generates enormous amounts of work for me.  You say I can
delete the folders if I don't want them.  So how do I do that?  20 times
a day I go in and delete a new users folders?  If I'm going to deploy a
1000 new desktops, do I do a little one liner script and maybe
accidentally wipe out something unintentionally?

Please - make this a simple to disable policy setting.

Perhaps we need classes of installations?  Home user, business computer
user, business terminal user, etc....  Something broad enough so general
classes of behavior can be established?