Re: [Gimp-user] GIMP SWAP Folder not honored

[gimp-users mbourne spamgourmet com]

stormy wrote:
> > Also what is the proper default cache folder expected on Windows if
> > none
> > were explicitly set?
>
> I guess this is OK:
>
> c:\Users\myuser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\gegl-0.4

Just to note that this would /not/ be a sensible default location for 
GIMP (or GEGL) to store its cache files. This is under a directory where 
Microsoft Windows stores /its/ own data. To be honest I'm not quite sure 
what INetCache is used for specifically. As far as I can make out from 
searching it's something to do with Internet Explorer's cache or perhaps 
running plugins in protected mode. Not sure why anything to do with GEGL 
would have ended up there though... is there a GIMP or GEGL browser plugin?

A more sensible default would be somewhere under, say:
  C:\Users\myuser\AppData\Local\GIMP\
i.e. a GIMP-specific directory under the local appdata directory. The 
local appdata directory is relocatable (as is the whole C:\Users 
directory), so the path used should be more like:
  %LOCALAPPDATA%\GIMP\
Where %LOCALAPPDATA% is an environment variable (set by Windows) 
containing the correct path to the current user's local appdata directory.

I believe there are also Windows API calls to retrieve the local appdata 
path. Looks like perhaps SHGetKnownFolderPath (since Windows Vista) or 
(deprecated) SHGetFolderPathA for compatibility with older versions:
<https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/desktop/api/shlobj_core/nf-shlobj_core-shgetknownfolderpath>
<https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/desktop/api/shlobj_core/nf-shlobj_core-shgetfolderpatha>

If using %LOCALAPPDATA% or the API calls to get the local appdata path, 
it may not really be necessary to provide an option within GIMP to 
change those paths. Anyone wanting to move GIMP's appdata to a different 
disk should be able to just configure Windows to move the appdata 
directories, and as a bonus other applications (should) also store their 
data at the new location.

Note that there's also a "roaming" appdata path. That shouldn't be used 
for large amounts of data, particularly if temporary or disposable 
caches. On networks using roaming profiles, the roaming appdata 
directory is synchronised to a server during log-on/log-off, which gets 
slow if there's a lot of data there. It might be useful for 
configuration files though, since change made on one machine should then 
be carried over to other machines the user log on to (if roaming 
profiles are being used). Apologies for some vagueness; I've never 
actually had to be concerned with the details. Probably best look up 
authoritative info on Windows roaming profiles and correct usage of 
"local" vs "roaming" appdata directories if this is of concern.

--
Mark.