More directories in the directory configuration

[Friedrich W. H. Kossebau]

Am Dienstag, 20. Januar 2004 19:26 schrieb Sven Leiber:
> And one thing I want to discuss about is, what you think about adding two
> directories to the KDE configuration!
>
> Change the Documents directory from ~ to ~/documents

That will be i18ned, right? And this only the default value, right? Fine. :)

> One is a "music" directory.  <-- I think the standard directory was
> ~/documents/music

You might also add a "video" directory if you are on it. And one for "coding" 
projects. And "spreadsheets". And some more. Do we really want to have that? 
Perhaps. 

We would end up with special directories for all the common categories: Texts, 
spreadsheets, presentations, pictures, music, videos, code, ...

Will bloat the KGlobalSettings api but perhaps it's worth it. Might help joe 
user to organize his files. But are we sure that this is the metric he would 
like to use? I wouldn't, I organize my files using other categories, 
especially in the toplevel, and expect everyone to have another pattern, 
based upon his life circumstances. (BTW I dislike it very much that I cannot 
split up my emails the way I would like it: storing the family correspondence 
under "~/personal/family/emails", KDE related under "~/coding/KDE/emails", a 
project's one under "~/work/project_a/emails" etc. without dirty tricks. This 
makes archiving more complicated than necessary.)

So, what is your target with these standard dirs? Where does is start, and 
where does it end? Whom does it please?

Ha, just got a cool (I think) idea: 

Part 1: Make it configurable/extendable by offering key/value based entries. 
Each app thinking it needs a new category, like "games", could add their key 
to the global settings (by the time they might agree on common keys)
-> No unneeded entries for those who don't use certain categories/apps 
(presentations, games or whatever)
-> extendable as needed
Still each app should be able to be assigned its own default directory 
(perhaps by assigning a special key, like "atlanticgames" or ""?).

Part 2: Add environment modes. A mode sets up some global variables which can 
be used to control the default path to files by category and perhaps other 
things, like email identity (other ideas?). You can change mode by applet or 
command. A mode could perhaps be bound to a virtual desktop.

Example:
Path entries (key=values):
texts=$BASEDIR/documents
presentations=$BASEDIR/presentations
spreadsheets=$BASEDIR/spreadsheets

Modes:
"project_c" has $BASEDIR=/mnt/groupserver/project_c
"privat" has $BASEDIR=$HOME, 

More enhanced: Modes could be subclassed, so one can have a basic "work" mode 
and several submodes which override (or implement) some variables, like 
"project_a", "project_c" etc. Then there also could be a general mode, which 
is what joe user will start (and possibly end) with. So key "music" will be 
always "$HOME/BossNeverLooksHere/Music". Well. In the end these path keys 
could be treated like any other variable, perhaps. But that could be left as 
another step.

Oh yes. If you don't do this I just got a new project with some high priority 
(huh, who will ever do all my others?) Will need some more elaboration, but 
the basic idea seems to help with some me ever plagueing things.
Or don't you think this to be a good idea?

Hm. Perhaps this can end as another settings layer to administrator/user: 
admin/user/mode. Or even admin/mode/user/mode? Think of group projects. One 
change for a mode used by a group by the admin would propagate to all. Like 
change of the $BASEDIR (be silent about mounting, or give other examples;).

> Another is a "public_html".   <--- I think the standard directory was
> ~/documents/public_html

* How many do publish some webfiles? I guess not so many, especially those at 
home. But to have a global pointer to the top personal publishing directory 
might be nice, still. Quanta developers might embrace it :)
* Should this be really under documents? After all this is published, and one 
publishes only finished things, I expect. So having this below "documents" 
might mislead people to develop inside (and this is about defaults, after all 
;)
* Should we think about a better name than "public_html" (or is apache(?) 
fixed to this name?), like "webwindow" (idea by german "Schaufenster")? We 
say "documents" and "music", not "doc" and "mp3". 

Comments?
Friedrich

 
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