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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Is anyone taking note of this? I
believed I used the steps given to communicate an issue. Where is
the best place to discuss this concern?<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/2/22 11:23, Jacob wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CADDeav8h_3U4bWcH_ZBrB20bE5EZQS5U+ADL2Jv+wC-giB4_qQ@mail.gmail.com">
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<div dir="ltr">Hello,
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I've just joined the mailing list. My name is Jake
Gustafson, known as Poikilos on GitHub and elsewhere. I have
been creating stories, creature drawings, and comics since I
was a child. I started learning to code when I was 12. If you
look at my <a href="https://github.com/poikilos"
moz-do-not-send="true">profile on GitHub</a> or or a
high-level summary on <a
href="https://stackoverflow.com/users/4541104/poikilos"
moz-do-not-send="true">my StackOverflow profile</a>, you can
see my various contributions in the form of mostly some small
python libraries not yet in PyPi and also several pull
requests to existing projects, as well as assisting with
identifying or diagnosing issues in public-licensed software.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks for allowing me to join the mailing list
automatically. I hope this isn't a distraction from the
mailing list if my issue is not supposed to be here. The
website said discussions about XDG should take place on this
mailing list. I hope this is the best place for the technical
issue below, since the issue involves the standard itself
rather than the software, which seems to implement the
standard as the standard stands, from my tests regarding this
issue (using desktop-file-validate).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>The standard itself is missing a definition of what key is
appropriate for the path where the Type is Directory. In fact,
there doesn't seem to be any specification of the Directory
type in the XDG standard other than that the extension should
be ".directory". In fact, there seems to be no way to
construct such a file in a way that desktop-file-validate
doesn't show an error.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>May I propose "Path" could be the key in this case? It
seems intuitive.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It may also pave the way for a "File" Type implemented
similarly. I suggest adding that.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I have had several uses for such a feature so I implemented
these features in an alternative standard called <a
href="https://github.com/poikilos/blnk"
moz-do-not-send="true">blnk</a>. If XDG implements the
features, I would change my program to match the standard. The
use cases are as follows:</div>
<div>- I (and various tech channels on YouTube) often install
GNU/Linux systems on old/new computers for relatives to avoid
various Windows issues. Such users don't understand symlinks.
Even Mac users don't usually understand aliases (which they
are called there and made easy to create like on Ubuntu) from
what I've seen. They sometimes delete all of the files from
one symlinked directory since they think there are two copies
of everything. Having a shortcut that goes to the "real"
directory is preferable and safer in this case.</div>
<div>- In another case, the directory shortcut can point to a
location that may not always exist. Even some favorite bars or
programs simply "forget" (or hide) a subdirectory of an
unmounted drive or remote host upon loading. This is not clear
to the user what is going on. They may wonder where the
shortcut went or what is happening. If there was a complete
.directory file standard, then DEs (maybe via xdg-launch or
some new xdg command that doesn't depend on mimetype) could
launch the file and stderr could say that the Directory is
missing or not accessible. The current workaround is to make
an Application shortcut to a directory, but this is not always
advisable. I've heard recommendations online saying to launch
some particular file browser, whereas xdg-launch would be
better. If the .directory spec were completed then implemented
be DEs, there would be a clear answer to the question and
there wouldn't have to be workarounds or handwritten .desktop
files.</div>
<div>- Perhaps DEs could implement following .desktop files in a
similar way to symlinks: to traverse folders while inside of a
file/directory chooser dialog box even. That feature is
implemented on Windows, for example. That would allow people
to have shortcuts in an appropriate place instead of an
ever-growing "Favorites" bar in their file manager. Also, the
favorites bar gets reset to nothing upon changing to a
different DE or upon running a different flatpak. I understand
these issues are not the realm of XDG to implement, but having
some sort of complete specification for Type=Directory would
allow DEs to do whatever they want with it and have a clear
way to remain compatible with other DEs in this regard,
regardless of whether their implementation involves my
wishlist.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thank you,</div>
<div>Jake "Poikilos" Gustafson </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
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