"Martin Owens" <docto...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >On Wed, 2010-09-01 at 00:19 +0200, Krzysztof Klimonda wrote: >> For example you are saying that emails should go to the directory >> specified in user-dirs.[defaults,dirs] but that makes no sense uless >> we >> are thinking about $DOCUMENTS/.email_app/. Emails, while being >> documents, aren't really suited for direct access. The same can be >> said >> for many other applications that doesn't fit into any of directory >> listed in the user-dirs.[defaults,dirs]. > >Direct access is a misdirection from the real problem of classification. >Sure emails shouldn't be just files and rarely would I expect a user to >use nautilus to manage their inbox, but the same can be said for most >data sets whether they be photo galleries (i.e. cheese) or emails. > >What having them in user-dirs does is lay down a guarentee that the data >will be in a narrower set of standard formats and will make developers >think very carefully before they run away inventing new formats, new >indexing and new storage mechanisms. > >Instead what it should promote is the sharing of data between >applications. > >Of course few programmers really want to tie themselves down to using >standard formats in known locations with the possibility of having to >track externally modified data. It's still not a good excuse to hide >user data sets from both users and other developers. > >Emails, events, bookmarks and contacts are user data sets just like >photos, documents and videos and it's a damn shame that we mis-classify >them and save their contents in strange places. But this is a gnome >problem and judging by that list of non-xdg projects to be converted it >looks like only a legion of developers all working on this full time >would be able to sort it out. > >Anyone got a few million quid? > >> XDG_DATA_HOKE is supposed to be basically a local, user-writable >> equivalent of /usr/share. There are many things that fit neither this >> requirement nor "user data" description. > >Yes, and anything else in the XDG_DATA_DIRS list. But few things don't >fit in my assessment of the problem. Perhaps we could do with a guide >and maybe I can have a word with a few pipe devels about their >experiences, requirements and thoughts on the whole thing of data >classification and storage. I think working to promote cross desktop adoption of technologies that make it easier to interact with data in a consistent, DE independent manner, (like Akonadi) will do more to solve this class of problems than specification work. Scott K -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
