Re: xdg-user-dirs – purpose?

[Simon Lees]

On 12/11/17 14:19, Thomas U. Grüttmüller wrote:
> On 09.11.2017 16:43, Simon McVittie wrote:
>>>             PUBLICSHARE
>>>
>>> This looks interesting. Has it ever been implemented? It reminds me
>>> of the
>>> public_html folder found in older distributions.
>>
>> Yes, GNOME can export it via WebDAV (the Sharing panel in the System
>> Settings, which controls gnome-user-share). I think it was also
>> available read-only via Bluetooth in the past, although I can't find
>> an option for that now.
> 
> Interesting.
> 
> 
>>>             DOCUMENTS
>>>
>>> The purpose is not obvious. Gimp uses it as a default to save
>>> pictures; Anki
>>> uses it to store its configuration files…
>>
>> It's the equivalent of Windows' "My Documents" folder, used as a
>> default/suggested location for files saved by the user in
>> content-creation
>> applications ("office" apps, and more specialized editors like GIMP or
>> Inkscape). From what you've said here, I think GIMP is using it
>> correctly,
>> and Anki is not - configuration files are usually implicitly created
>> by using or reconfiguring an application rather than being explicitly
>> saved by the user, so they should go in the XDG_CONFIG_HOME defined by
>> the XDG basedir spec (which by default is hidden, so the user doesn't
>> normally see files in their file browser that they didn't choose to
>> create).
> 
> What is the difference between DOCUMENTS and $HOME?
> 
> Greetings
> Thomas

Personally "Documents" is where I keep everything I work on thats not
source code, and where I keep my invoices / receipts etc, it makes them
easier to find then if they were in $HOME with everything else, the fact
that libreoffice uses this as its default save / load location also
makes life easier.

-- 

Simon Lees (Simotek)                            http://simotek.net

Emergency Update Team                           keybase.io/simotek
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