5 ms·
On Windows anyway, the root of the user profile is already filled with garbage directories, and so a few more dot-dirs and files feel par for the course. The ad
by deburo 4y ago
On Windows anyway, the root of the user profile is already filled with garbage directories, and so a few more dot-dirs and files feel par for the course. The advantage is that accessing your root dir is easier than typing out %appdata% in File Explorer.
- delta_p_delta_x 4y agoOne could say the same for ~ on Linux. 'It's already bad' isn't an excuse for sloppy programming. Software should ideally adhere to OS norms. Better still, software shouldn't be opaque about where global/user-specific cache/config data is stored, and should prompt users to choose (or set sane defaults, again adhering to OS norms). IMO the video game industry is a big offender of home-folder pollution, with saves and configs being splattered all over %USERPROFILE%\Documents, %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\ (which is a legacy holdover from Windows XP), %USERPROFILE%\Saved Games (which does have a corresponding KNOWNFOLDERID), etc etc.
- toastal 4y agoIf it's any consolation, games from Steam on Linux leak files all over the place on that OS too. Right now the offenders in my $HOME not following $XDG are games, LibreWolf via Mozilla, Xmonad, GnuPG, and anything related to npm (with their maintainers closing any issued opened about support $XDG).
- Macha 4y agoSteamApps/userdata, %APPDATA%/Publisher, %APPDATA/Developer, %LOCALAPPDATA%, the list goes on...
- rogual 4y agoWhen making games, I have them store their config in %APPDATA% on Windows, although I do see the downside if there's a bug and I want to direct a customer to send me a log file that was saved there or just generally delete or move files around in there. It's not as familiar and safe-feeling for a nontechnical user to navigate to %APPDATA% is it is to just look in their Documents.