Author Topic: Linux user data dir  (Read 8832 times)

danish

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Linux user data dir
« on: October 20, 2016, 02:10:52 pm »
Just an FYI, convention dictates Linux game data directories in the HOME folder should be prefixed with a "." to keep it hidden. This is to prevent viewing of the home folder being cluttered with generated folders.

Picture attached to demonstrate.

Enigma

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Re: Linux user data dir
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2016, 02:37:50 am »
Just an FYI, convention dictates Linux game data directories in the HOME folder should be prefixed with a "." to keep it hidden. This is to prevent viewing of the home folder being cluttered with generated folders.

Picture attached to demonstrate.

In the first version of Blackvoxel the data directory was hidden (we used ".blackvoxel") for the Linux version.

But that was changed when the school mode was introduced : we made the explicit choice to make this directory visible.

The problem with an hidden data directory was because Blackvoxel is also an educational program. Some users have to interact with some Blackvoxel files as part of their daily use(Programs for robots, files for programming or custom textures). Some student that are beginners can be confused as they didn't find the Blackvoxel data directory because it was hidden. And even for those knowing where to find it, it wasn't very comfortable as there is a lot of hidden directories in the home directory.
So it appears to us that a working directory shouldn't be hidden.
In addition, the new convention for a lot of Linux distribution is now to put config files in a directory lying in .config rather than sitting in the home as an hidden directory.

Some suggested that we should separate settings from the user data. But we find this confusing to have two place with Blackvoxel data in it. In addition, as all Blackvoxel settings aren't yet in the Gui, user have to use config files in some case. And it's not easy to explain to some users "find the Blackvoxel directory, not the one you see, but the other one that is hidden".

That said, we offer the possibility for the user (or some distribution packager) to adjust it to meet their goals. The data directory name is in the ACompileSettings.h configuration file for Blackvoxel compilation options.

The Blackvoxel Team

danish

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Re: Linux user data dir
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2016, 10:02:16 am »
As stated, it was just an FYI, this is fine. However, while I fully understand and respect the reasons perhaps the solution could be more elegant? A static link might be a nicer solution. That way, it's safely hidden from the user while still providing visible access that can be deleted.
"ln -s ~/.blackvoxel ~/Blackvoxel"