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Unrelated to Snap, but on Windows, trying to use the My Documents folder for your actual documents is frustrating, because a huge number of apps and games like
by encom 7y ago
Unrelated to Snap, but on Windows, trying to use the My Documents folder for your actual documents is frustrating, because a huge number of apps and games like to use the folder for all sorts of nonsense, instead of using %appdata% like they're supposed to.
- RMPR 7y agoThis behavior is such normal for all the apps (especially games) that at one point I thought it was a specification.
- CamperBob2 7y agoThe problem in Windows' case is that there never was a clear specification regarding what kinds of files should go where. The directory structure and environment in every version of Windows is a little different, and it's hard to write an app (or an installer) that does the right thing on all of them.
- Too 7y agoAs long as you follow knownfolderid nothing has changed since Vista, or CSIDL constants go even further back. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/patricka/where-should-i-store-my-data-and-configuration-files-if-i-target-multiple-os-versions https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/patricka/wher... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/csidl https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/csidl .NET has its own set which is also very old and goes back to .NET 1.0 (as old as Win98) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.environment.specialfolder?view=netframework-1.1 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.environme...
- CamperBob2 7y agoI think the combination of complexity and obscurity of those two links reinforces my point more than it refutes it. There's a reason why basically no one gets this stuff 100% right, including some of Microsoft's own first-party applications.
- Andrex 7y agoI feel like in 2000 or before, My Documents was the "home" folder and you were supposed to put your own subdirectories inside of that. Might be wrong about that though.
- jannes 7y agoAt least on Windows you can mark folders hidden without having to change the name. (i.e. the app that created the folder will still find it)
- abrowne 7y agoCreate the file ~/.hidden and with the line "snap". It will then be hidden from your file manager.
- im3w1l 7y agoIf it's still visible in ls, it's not a fix.
- snazz 7y agoMake an alias that adds ls --hide the same way you do for ls --color.
- jabirali 7y agoThe issue is that you have to continue "fixing" lots of individual utilities. In addition to your file manager and `ls`, what about tools like `fd`/`rg`/`ag` (requires adding `snap` to `~/.ignore` or `~/.gitignore`), `fzf` navigation in the terminal (may require updating `FZF_DEFAULT_COMMAND`), "open file" and "save file" dialogs in non-GNOME apps (like Zotero), and so on. The `snap` directory keeps popping up in new places, and discovering all the different ways to hide a non-dot-file is exhausting. In contrast, adding that initial dot to the `snap` directory would avoid the problem entirely. I have still been using `snap` for the past year, and have mostly been happy with it. It works well for apps like `spotify` and `zotero`, it's a better solution than `ppa` for third-party software, and I like that it tries to introduce a permission model. But not following the dotfile convention is annoying, and not prioritizing a search-and-replace of `~/snap` to e.g. `~/.snap` in the code after four years is strange when this is their most upvoted bug.
- laumars 7y ago
- badsectoracula 7y agoAFAIK one common reasoning is that it is a writable folder that is easy for the users to find when they need to contact support.