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I have a slightly different pet peeve. I don't like applications that default to saving files to my home folder. I wish they would look for e.g. /home/user/Docu

I have a slightly different pet peeve. I don't like applications that default to saving files to my home folder. I wish they would look for e.g. /home/user/Documents or whatever else seems appropriate and even semi-standardized given the type of file. But just dropping stuff in my home directory--look, if I'm in a hurry and my defenses are down, you basically just encouraged me to clutter things up. The last software I found that does this is a "download helper"...even though I have a Downloads folder that my distro already set up, that Chrome and Firefox know to use, this download helper thinks I want those downloads dumped in my home folder. I hope some generous person changes this behavior, meanwhile I forgot to charge it manually for the last batch and I have a bunch of cleanup to do.

rovr138 8y ago
That’s what the article talks about. How applications should use $XDG_DATA_HOME, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and $XDG_CACHE_HOME and some defaults if they’re not set.
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  I'm not seeing it. Where does XDG define when and how an app should use: /home/user/Documents/ /home/user/Downloads/ /home/user/Pictures/ /home/user/Videos/ Let me know what I'm missing.
  - nycticorax 8y ago
    I can't find "official" XDG documentation of this, but the Arch Wiki describes, for instance, the XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR and XDG_VIDEOS_DIR environment variables: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDG_user_directories https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDG_user_directories It looks like maybe the "official" documentation is here: http://user-dirs.freedesktop.org/releases/xdg-user-dirs-0.17.tar.gz http://user-dirs.freedesktop.org/releases/xdg-user-dirs-0.17... But I haven't gone through that carefully.
  - petemc_ 8y ago
    Why would it have to define those directories in particular?
  - amlib 8y ago
    You should be able to change the default settings for these directories by changing /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults (system-wide) and ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs (users override)
jlarocco 8y ago
There's no pleasing everybody. I strongly prefer apps default to the previously used directory, and the home directory otherwise. IME apps are wrong 99% of the time when they guess their own save location.

rovr138 8y ago

That’s what the article talks about. How applications should use $XDG_DATA_HOME, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and $XDG_CACHE_HOME and some defaults if they’re not set.

themodelplumber 8y ago
I'm not seeing it. Where does XDG define when and how an app should use: /home/user/Documents/ /home/user/Downloads/ /home/user/Pictures/ /home/user/Videos/ Let me know what I'm missing.
- nycticorax 8y ago
  I can't find "official" XDG documentation of this, but the Arch Wiki describes, for instance, the XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR and XDG_VIDEOS_DIR environment variables: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDG_user_directories https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDG_user_directories It looks like maybe the "official" documentation is here: http://user-dirs.freedesktop.org/releases/xdg-user-dirs-0.17.tar.gz http://user-dirs.freedesktop.org/releases/xdg-user-dirs-0.17... But I haven't gone through that carefully.
- petemc_ 8y ago
  Why would it have to define those directories in particular?
- amlib 8y ago
  You should be able to change the default settings for these directories by changing /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults (system-wide) and ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs (users override)

jlarocco 8y ago

There's no pleasing everybody. I strongly prefer apps default to the previously used directory, and the home directory otherwise. IME apps are wrong 99% of the time when they guess their own save location.