Support the ' XDG' specification by not putting anything in the root of $HOME

[ghost]

Hiya

It seems my Oolite installation on Linux creates ~/.Oolite. This is not tidy! Why not use instead - as I believe a specification called XDG asserts (see e.g. this Firefox bug report) - ~/config/Oolite?

[TimoWilken]

Looking in ~/.Oolite, it stores addons and logs. These seem to fit better in XDG_DATA_HOME ("user-specific data files") instead of XDG_CONFIG_HOME ("user-specific configuration files").

In that case, the correct path is given by:

1. ${XDG_DATA_HOME}/Oolite, if the XDG_DATA_HOME environment variable is set
2. ~/.local/share/Oolite if XDG_DATA_HOME is not set (note the dot!)

Alternatively, are there GNUstep-specific directories that should be used instead?

There might need to be some logic to detect if ~/.Oolite exists and to use it instead if it does -- or is it a good idea to move ~/.Oolite to one of the above directories automatically?

As only two places in the code use ~/.Oolite (the logger and the addon manager), this seems like a fairly simple fix. I could try and make a pull request (though I don't really know Objective-C, so it might take some time).

[VorpalBlade]

In addition it seems oolite litters file not just in a dot-directory, but also in a visible directoy called "GNUstep". This absolutely should never happen.

~ $ tree GNUstep/
├── Defaults
│   ├── .lck
│   └── oolite.plist
└── Library
    ├── ApplicationSupport
    │   └── Oolite
    │       └── ManagedAddOns
    └── Caches
        └── org.aegidian.oolite
            └── Oolite-cache.plist

[HiranChaudhuri]

This GNUstep directory likely comes due to the Apple nature of the project where GNUstep is simply a requirement.
Can this library run from other directories at all?

[VorpalBlade]

This GNUstep directory likely comes due to the Apple nature of the project where GNUstep is simply a requirement. Can this library run from other directories at all?

That seems largely irrelevant? The program (or library) should conform to the platform native conventions for each platform. I.e. XDG on Linux, AppData on Windows, and whatever it happens to be on Mac (I believe they too use a directory, but it has been over a decade and a half since I last touched a mac, so I don't remember exactly).

The GNUstep directory seems wildly non-conforming on all platforms.

[cim--]

https://mediawiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Report_Bugs has instructions for reporting issues to the GNUStep library - that bit isn't something which can be fixed within Oolite.

Moving ~/.Oolite to a more standardised default location (while continuing to support the existing one if it's already been created) could be done locally, yes.