[digikam] [Bug 382358] New: Windows: configuration must be stored in %APPDATA% not in %LOCALAPPDATA%

[Thomas Debesse]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=382358

            Bug ID: 382358
           Summary: Windows: configuration must be stored in %APPDATA% not
                    in %LOCALAPPDATA%
           Product: digikam
           Version: 5.6.0
          Platform: Other
                OS: MS Windows
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: general
          Assignee: digikam-devel at kde.org
          Reporter: dev at illwieckz.net
  Target Milestone: ---

Hi, I discovered that on Windows platform, Digikam is storing it's `digikamrc`
configuration in %LOCALAPPDATA%, which is wrong.

%LOCALAPPDATA% is a place that is tied to the local computer and can be safely
thrown away, it's the right place for cache things (like `digikam/cache`, but
not for config file.

For example, while connecting to a random workstation belonging to a Windows
Domain %LOCALAPPDATA% would be something like
"C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local" but %APPDATA% would be something like
"\\<server>\<username>\AppData".
On this configuration, the backup system only have to backup %APPDATA%.

On a Windows Domain setup, %APPDATA% is either available by roaming or by
network drive, meaning any user can connect to any computer and recover it's
own config file if this configfile is stored in %APPDATA%. It also means a
computer can break and the user lost nothing. The sysadmin just put throw away
the faulty computer and put a brand new one without having to copy files from
the faulty computer.

On the contrary, if the config file is mistakenly stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%
instead of %APPDATA%, everytime an user switch its computer (because it was
replaced, or because computers are not tied to one user and everyone can use
every computer), this user will have to reconfigure Digikam from scratch, and
of course, the user will end with as many different configurations as computer
he logged in. This also means that if the drive is lost, the digikam
configuration is lost.

%LOCALAPPDATA% is not meant to be on backup, it's for local cache and stuff
like that. %LOCALAPPDATA% is meant to store stuff that can change when user
change its computer, which is not an user expects from a configuration file.

So, stuff like `digikamrc` and `digkam_tagmanagerrc` must be stored in
%APPDATA%.

Stuff like `digikam\template.xml` (author templates) must be stored in
%APPDATA%. By the way, it would be better to store author templates in database
 like labels are, but that's another topic. As long as this kind of stuff is
not stored is database, it must be stored in %APPDATA%.

Stuff like `digikam/cache` must remain in %LOCALAPPDATA%, that's the right
place for that, because Domains administrator does not want to uselessly
increase their backup size by storing per computer throwable temporary cache,
and it would uselessly consume network and drive resources, breaking the
purpose of a “local” cache.

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