Compliance with XDG specifications on UNIX systems

[mochaaP]

Notice: this is a breaking change. Users need to move their files from .praat-dir to .config/praat.

[mesaprotector]

Would be nice to get this in. I imagine it hasn't been merged because it's a breaking change - could melder_files.cpp be made to check for an existing ~/.praat_dir before creating the preferences directory in the new location?

[PaulBoersma]

Mmm, none of the 11 Linuxes that I tried have the XDG_CONFIG_HOME variable set, but many of them have a $HOME/.config folder in which we find folders like gnome and pulse and gtk-3.0. So I guess that $HOME/.praat-dir should be moved to $HOME/.config/praat in those cases, is that right? The change indeed breaks something, but we have to do something similar for Windows (moving to AppData/Roaming). So this will make a chance for Praat version 7, to be published in November 2024. The XDG setting will then also be easy to implement, although I hope that I can hope that this setting will not change during the user's lifetime on the computer.

[mesaprotector]

$HOME/.config is indeed the default for $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, but the variable can be changed. I wouldn't recommend hardcoding it in the new location either, but maybe look at what other C++ applications do.

[thatfloflo]

The XDG Base Directory Specification suggests that $HOME/.config is the default, unless $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set and points somewhere else:

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user-specific configuration files should be stored. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.config should be used.

(For Windows, from Vista onward, %AppData% should always be set as far as I know, currently pointing to the %UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming directory by default)

[mal-cap]

I'd love to see this get some traction, though I know this PR is somewhat old now. The XDG Base Directory compliance has been a stable, well-established convention on Linux for quite some time, and it would be a nice improvement for Linux users, even if largely just a cosmetic one.

To clarify for @PaulBoersma regarding your earlier comment:

Mmm, none of the 11 Linuxes that I tried have the XDG_CONFIG_HOME variable set, but many of them have a $HOME/.config folder in which we find folders like gnome and pulse and gtk-3.0. So I guess that $HOME/.praat-dir should be moved to $HOME/.config/praat in those cases, is that right?

This is actually expected behavior. The XDG Base Directory Specification intentionally defines XDG_CONFIG_HOME as unset by default, with applications expected to fall back to ~/.config/ when the variable is absent. This is the explanation for your observation that many folders (eg. gnome, pulse, etc.) land in ~/.config, as a result of the XDG_CONFIG_HOME spec rather than despite it. Actually setting the environment variable is rare but has some use-cases, eg. a different global config folder or a per-app specific override.

I would be happy to write a shim in the UNIX case that would check for the existing folder with the XDG_CONFIG_HOME handling as the fallback, if this is something you would consider is appropriate now.