External Dep Proposal for 2.20: xdg-user-dirs

[Luca Ferretti <elle uca libero it>]

In the past months Alexander Larsson worked on a freedesktop.org "spec"
and tool to <quote>manage well known user directories like the desktop
folder and the music folder</quote>.

You can find all needed info on this webpage [1] and in xdg mailing list
archives.

Now, some GNOME modules are using this tool, when available. Grepping my
changelogs I found:

      * totem: use xdg-user-dirs to add some default directories to the
        "Open" dialogues (2007-03-26) 
      * epiphany: use xdg-user-dirs to get a better default Downloads
        directory (2007-04-23) 
      * sound-juicer: use xdg-user-dirs to set a nice default target for
        encoded files (2007-03-26) 
      * evince:  use the xdg-user-dirs DOCUMENTS folder as default
        folder when opening a file chooser (2007-04-02) 
      * gnome-screensaver: use XDG user dirs to find pictures directory
        (2007-04-23)

Patches for Nautilus (desktop and templates directories) and Panel
(desktop directory) are ready (and available in Fedora SRPMs).

Rhythmbox is supporting this to define it's music library location.

There is also an open bug asking for a glib wrap to xdg_user_dir_lookup
(432651) and another against gnome-control-center to use Pictures in
about-me capplet.

So, my suggestions/requests are:

     1. Add xdg-user-dirs to external deps, so any item in GNOME
        platform module could use it 
     2. Add xdg-user-dirs-gtk to desktop modules or import its feature
        in control-center/settings-daemon/gnome-session [2] 
     3. Check if other GNOME Desktop modules could/should use
        xdg-user-dirs (example: glade3 could save/open from PROJECTS) -
        a page on live.gnome.org about xdg-user-dirs usage could be
        useful 
     4. be happy with your localized dirs
     5. oh, don't forget to apply patches to nautilus and gnome-panel

Cheers, Luca

PS. IMHO this could be a really cool feature for GNOME 2.20 and it's the
right time to perform a good test before 2.20 release.

PPS please, don't make this thread a flame claiming another
implementation: you can find flames on xdg mailing list and Alex blog.
I'm asking to add xdg-user-dirs 'cause it's yet available and used,
while not fully tested outside Fedora unstable.

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[1] http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fxdg_2duser_2ddirs

[2] xdg-user-dirs-gtk is a simple tool to monitor and change language on
session startup. See http://svn.gnome.org/viewcvs/xdg-user-dirs-gtk/