Re: [gnome-love] Gnome goal proposal : Cleaning hidden folder




В Пнд, 07/04/2008 в 13:11 +0200, Lionel Dricot пишет:
Hello,

Introduction
*************

If you work with the same /home/ for years, you will agree that hidden
folders are becoming an huge mess. When upgrading, it might even
introduce bugs not reproducible anywhere else than on your
configuration, it requires you to create a new account when you want
to test a true default configuration and that's only a part of the
problem. The problem is described here :
http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?184-cleaning-user-preferences-keeping-user-data

Hopefully, FreeDesktop.org has issued a recommandation for
applications to handle their preferences/data/hidden folders :
http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/latest/ar01s03.html

I've written a Gnome goal proposal to implement this spec everywhere
in Gnome and I've received some enthousiast feedbacks :
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeGoals/XDGConfigFolders


It looks like a lot of people agree on the problem and would like to
see a solution. Then, I want to bring things further and discuss the
"how to do it".


Disclaimer
************

**WARNING** It should be clear for everyone that want to work on this
what the spec really is. The spec is *NOT* about putting all our old
hidden folder in a .config one, like some people tend to think. It
must be clear that the folder $XDG_CONFIG_HOME should be deletable
without any data loss. See the Gnome goal page for more information.


Discussion
************

What follows is only my personnal opinion as a non specialist.
Everything is always open to discussion :

For some applications, the migration is quite simple. It's a matter of
putting a few files in some other folders than their own hidden folder
or .gnome2 (which should disappear completely, IMHO). For applications
that interact heavily with others, things might be complicated. A lot
of bugs have already been reported and are tracked by the tracker bug
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=523057

Then, there is the question : "What about gconf ?". I think that gconf
should itself store preferences of applications in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
and user data in $XDG_DATA_HOME, without the need of creating a
specific gconf folder in those folders. The usage of gconf should also
be clarified : why have some application a lot of gconf entries and
files in their hidden folder (e.g. : epiphany). Worst : why have some
applications a strict dependancy between data stored in gconf and
their hidden folder (eg : evolution) ? I see two approach :

1) Say that gconf is only for configuuration purpose. No data should
ever be stored with gconf otherwise it's a bug. I don't know what the
current status of applications using gconf is.

2) Add a property to each gconf key (or group of keys) telling if the
key is a cache element, a configuration element, a data element. The
value of this property should be set by the application when creating
the key. 



What do you think ? How do you see this problem ? Do you see any other
major issue ?

Thanks for your attention and your work on Gnome,

It's a very reasonable proposal. But I think it's not a something that
can be a goal. Goal could be completed in two weeks with the small
changes. This move requires careful update of the applications with
tracking the migration and so on. For example I have no idea how to
migrate gconf folder properly.

So it's just requires a lot of work probably during several release
cycles. Not sure we have power for this move :) But if someone will
propose a set of patches on this issue, why not.

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