[RFC] "Documents Folder" icon in "system:/"

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Thursday 11 August 2005 08:11, Gary Greene wrote:
> On Thursday 11 August 2005 05:26 pm, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> > On Wednesday 10 August 2005 07:59, James Richard Tyrer wrote:
> > $HOME is not the equivalent of "\user name". UNIX is not Windows, and we
> > tend to do a few things a little bit differently. $HOME _is_ "My
> > Documents". is that clear enough for you?
>
> This is a fundamental difference in your view Aaron, and many others I know
> (including myself...) IMO, $HOME _is_ as James has stated: it is the user
> profile, which includes user data and user configuration data. Both are
> exclusive in my eyes.

we've been speaking about files that are visible to the user by default. 
configuration and other application data does indeed live in $HOME and by 
default it's not visible. when it is visible, that's a problem. specifically 
because it's not something the user created and therefore has little 
opportunity to decide the purpose, value or content of. instead of keeping it 
in ~/Settings we keep them in hidden directories. which is why we shouldn't 
need to have a separate ~/Documents or ~/Files ... it's just one more level 
of hierarchy (and thereby training, support and configuration) that we can 
avoid.

as far as user visible files go, $HOME ought to be populated with the user's 
data. that's how it's been generally kept, with the odd misbehavour, for some 
time now.

> > > It has nothing to do with the user interacting with it.  The
> > > application is installed with a prefix of: $HOME/cxoffice.  So that is
> > > where the directory is -- just the same as if you had built the app
> > > from source with that prefix.
> >
> > this is not the common case. this is, actually, uncommon. most $HOMEs out
> > there don't have binaries installed to them. so instead of enforcing a
> > $HOME/files on _everyone_, why not provide for a $HOME/bin when and if
> > you install programs in your home directory. that way we're effecting
> > fewer people and providing a more sensible default: your home is where
> > you keep your data.
>
> I beg to differ here, there are a NUMBER of users I know that do just as
> James has stated. They install programs in $HOME.

which is the wrong thing to optimize IMO for since it's not common and easily 
cased for with an applications directory. better yet, that applications 
directory ought to be hidden and the apps can simply install .desktop files 
like good little citizens.

> Additionally, I prefer 
> ~/Mail over hiding it in the $KDEHOME directory somewhere....

does seeing it in your file manager make you feel better? or is it the backup 
issue? the latter already has an answer, doesn't it?

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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