Re: [Evolution] Backing up Evolution Data

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

> If the Evolution developers are reading this I'd like to point out
> (again) that expecting people to remember and use an obscure,
> application-specific backup feature is unrealistic.

I hardly think that a menu item labelled "Backup Evolution Data ..."
under "File" is obscure, nor is it necessary to remember anything. It's
not like you have to delve deep down into menus or find a command line
option to do it.

> What people actually do is backup and restore their entire home
> directory. Sometimes they restore just pieces of it. Because, you know,
> they might be moving to a new laptop with a 256 GB SSD much smaller than
> the 1 TB hard drive they used to have.

And that works perfectly fine for Evolution.  You don't have to use the
menu backup/restore - but it is useful if you can't restore your whole
home directory.  In fact I haven't used the backup/restore facility for
years - I have either copied my whole home between machines or I have
decided to start fresh (which is always a good option after a few
years).

> Evolution and Gnome itself are very unhelpful with this by spreading
> necessary information into at least three different directories:
> .local,
> .config and gsettings / dconf / gconf / whatever-conf.
>
> One single .application directory like Firefox uses in .mozilla and
> Thunderbird in .thunderbird is far more manageable and useful.

Evolution conforms to Gnome standards, because it's a Gnome
application.  Firefox/Thunderbird aren't Gnome applications - if they
were they should store their data according to Gnome guidelines.

All part of the rich ecosystem of a Linux install.

P.