Re: A Few Standard Folders [Re: Structure in $HOME]

[Claes Holmerson <claes it-slav net>]

On Mon, 13 Jan 2003, Alan Horkan wrote:

> Your focus seems to be mainly on settings and preferences.
> I would be very interested to see
> $HOME/Documents
> $HOME/Images
> $HOME/Music
> $HOME/Web Pages
> $HOME/Video
> perhaps more ...


I see what you mean. I think coming up something like this, especially in
a way so that you can easily select among directories in all file dialogs,
is useful

However, I have a few concerns:

The collection of categories is very personal. I would like to
arrange my own directory structure without having a desktop force me to
use certain directories at top of $HOME. When I log in on a new Gnome/KDE
account, I would like to do ls in $HOME and see nothing, or at most, a
Desktop directory. I would like to define my home directory myself.

I have an idea that the concept of "My Documents", "My Music" etc could be
implemented with desktop entries that points to where these directories
are defined. Personally I am more interested in MyTarballs and MySrc
than the above. So it should not be hardcoded. It must be
implemented in a flexible way that adapts different users needs. Remember
that $HOME is the only workarea there is. Defining lots of directories
that may be unused at the top level is not very polite.

I think this discussion is somewhat separate to the discussion about
preferences/application data/temporary data. My hope is that the first
discussion can lead to something that is useful also for non-desktop
programs.

Claes