Where kde saves user settings ?

[John_82]

On Sat, 18 Mar 2017 07:15:35 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <1i5t5.duncan at cox.net> wrote:

> John_82 posted on Fri, 17 Mar 2017 13:44:58 +0000 as excerpted:
> 
> > Can anyone tell me where kde stores things like
> > 
> > Start button menu content.
> > Task bar content.
> > The state a user left when they logged out so that windows will mostly
> > be restored etc.
> > 
> > Think I have covered all that would be needed but maybe there are
> > others?
> > 
> > It's pretty obvious where some apps keep their states but I'm having
> > problems finding out where kde stores similar things.
> 
> That's actually a broader question than you likely realize, with an even
> broader answer as the locations have changed over the years and kde
> versions, and frameworks-5-based apps now use the standard freedesktop.org
> specified locations, while kde4-based apps (of which there are still some
> around that haven't migrated yet and that might be dropped in a year or
> two when kdelibs4 goes EOL if they still haven't migrated) use the old kde
> location.
> 
> The legacy kde4 location was in $KDEHOME, $HOME/.kde if $KDEHOME was unset
> (tho some distros changed that to .kde4 or so), ~/.kde if $HOME wasn't set
> either.
> 
> Inside that .kde, share was the major subdir, with the two major subdirs
> under share being config and apps.  The config subdir had individual
> config files.  The apps subdir was for apps with enough data/files to
> justify their own subdir beneath apps.  Generally, that was app-data, not
> specifically config, but sometimes the line isn't exactly clear.
> 
> So for kde4-based apps, try looking in ~/.kde/share/ in both the config
> and apps subdirs.
> 
> For plasma5 and frameworks5 based apps, as I said, the freedesktop.org
> speced locations are normally used.  That's $XDG_CONFIG_HOME for config,
> and $XDG_DATA_HOME for app data.  If those aren't set... well, let me
> point you to the freedesktop.org website for the specs and you can read it
> yourself, but try ~/.config and ~/.local/share .
> 
> https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/
> 
> That has lots of different specs listed, many of which may be interesting
> reading (they certainly do here), but finding the specific one you're
> after might be confusing due to the number of them.  So more specifically
> of interest here, try the basedir spec:
> 
> https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/basedir-spec/
> 
> 
> Meanwhile, the more kde-specific parallels for system administrators and
> more technical users are:
> 
> https://userbase.kde.org/Special:MyLanguage/KDE_System_Administration
> 
> That's the general page, with the topic specific pages:
> 
> https://userbase.kde.org/KDE_System_Administration/KDE_Filesystem_Hierarchy
> 
> https://userbase.kde.org/KDE_System_Administration/XDG_Filesystem_Hierarchy
> 
> https://userbase.kde.org/KDE_System_Administration/Environment_Variables
> 
> 
> As I said, likely a rather more complex question, and answer, than
> you anticipated. =8^0
> 
> 
> -- 
> Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
> "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
> and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman
> 
Thanks Duncan. I'll have a read. That sys admin one could be very interesting. The system installs do change the windowmanager variable but I'd like more info on what goes on there.

I think I have managed to sort out what is going on since asking. I was particulary interested in start button menu's and taskbars. I can summarise the start button. Desktops have menu catagory trees whose contents may be set by a distro. The one on opensuse contains and amazing number of categories eg all will have utilities. It has history, science and miriads of others. Along side that there is a directory with dot dektop files which also contain category information. These seem to be scaned and and linked somehow into the eventual menu. There does seem to be user local taskbar set ups but also something system wide and as you mention some apps look after specific user settings in various ways. A few and the desktops seem to be doing that of ~/.configure. Seems like a good way forwards 
 to me.

I started wondering what was going on when I installed lxde as a test to another user account. I expectd that to give some isolation. It didn't my kde menu was twice the size and full of lxde apps some of which can't even work on a kde desktop. I then looked at another kde user ;-) Root. Same there so there is no isolation even if all users use the same desktop. Something windows has coped with for a very long time. Different desktops is one of linux's advantages but not much of one if it works as it does. It's a mess and one kde users menu settings changing anothers isn't exactly good either. I mentioned this on a forum and it was blamed on window managers. I'd be surprised if that was true so became curious. Turns out it's due to where distro's put the desktop files and I suspect when I 
 ask kde about this aspect they will suggest they should go some where else that is user local. There seems to be scope for both user local and machine wide installs but I'm not sure which user local
  directories over ride or add to the existing ones. It would be a right mess to sort out anyway every time an appliction or other desktop was installed. Ok this is on one machine but some do that.

:-) I feel like making some noise about it - if I'm totally correct, in the hope that it will be fixed. So sorry about the long post. Most problems seem to be at the distro end.

SDDM may have a problem as well. It looks like it could log into a desktop using the wrong menu tree. That aspect seems to be ok though as the lxde one contained a lot of kde apps.

I need a spell checker in this mailer especially if in a hurry so please excuse etc.

John
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