Re: Proposal question.

[Pascal Bourguignon]

> From: Nicola Pero <nicola@brainstorm.co.uk>
> Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:18:03 +0100 (BST)
> 
> 
> > One of the things I found odd about the Users domain was that it was the 
> > only of the four that broke from the $(DOMAIN)/[structure] format. 
> > Having, for example, /home/harrison/GNUstep/[Library|etc...] was odd, in 
> > comparison to $((USER_DOMAIN)=/home/$(username))/[Library|etc...].
> > 
> > In this case, the only two directories (based on my proposal) that would 
> > be added to the user's home directory would be ~/Library and ~/Tools, 
> > with the structure under that being similar to the other domains.
> > 
> > Now, if people don't want to add extra visible directories to their home 
> > dirs, I can understand that.  Under LinuxSTEP, those directories exist 
> > anyway, so there's no harm.  Maybe that's a bit of my LinuxSTEP FH 
> > design sneaking in.  However, in an integrated system, I don't see why 
> > there has to be a ~/GNUstep directory, or even a ~/.GNUstep directory. 
> > It becomes an unnecessary namespace, in relation to the other domains. 
> > Plus, why do Library and Tools have to be hidden from the user?  Maybe 
> > they want to be able to easily see the contents of those parts of the 
> > structure?
> 
> Since different people/systems/distributions/even different users on the
> same system do have different wishes for where their gnustep user dirs are
> kept, the best we can do is ... establish a reasonable default, and make
> sure it can easily be configured to be something else.
> 
> The general idea is that that is done via unix-like configuration files,
> basically a very simple ~/.GNUsteprc.

What's wrong with:

       . /usr/local/GNUstep/System/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh
       export GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT=$HOME/GNU-I-prefer-it-named-such-STEP 

in your ~/.bashrc or your  ~/.profile (or in the system /etc/bashrc or
/etc/profile)?


There's no need for a ~/.GNUsteprc!

> As I already said, I'm aware the current implementation is not the final
> one - but it will be fixed/extended, and that is where we are aiming to
> go.
> 
> So - the general philosophy we are pursuing is ... having each
> distribution/each user be able to change quite freely their own gnustep
> user dir and their own gnustep user defaults. :-)


Note that  KDE creates and  use ~/KDesktop and ~/KDesktop1,  and other
applications  create   non-dotted  directories   or  file  too   in  ~
(StarOffice  creates a ~/office52,  etc), so  I would  say that  ~/ is
already clutered.   Removing ~/GNUstep  for ~/.GNUstep does  not bring
anything.  The right solution is already implemented, it's the .hidden
file in any directory.

So,   I   would   say   that   Library  and   Tools   should   go   to
$GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT, that GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT is ~/GNUstep by default for
GNUstep  over host systems,  and that  integrated GNUstep  systems may
override   their  $GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT/Makefiles/GNUstep.sh   to  have
$GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT =  $HOME by  default, and given  that the  user may
always set his own GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT in his .bashrc or .profile.


Having /home/harrison/GNUstep/Library is  not odd if GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT
is set to $HOME/GNUstep.

Placement  of   these  directories  should   respect  religiously  the
GNUSTEP_SYSTEM_ROOT,    GNUSTEP_LOCAL_ROOT    and    GNUSTEP_USER_ROOT
variables and  everything will be nicely  placed where it  needs to be
from that.  Thereon, clearly the  setting of these variables depend on
the kind of system you're running, and on user's preferences.


-- 
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