Evince "home directory"

[Frank Cox-2]

When I open a document from Evince (File-Open) I always get a window that says
this:

 "The folder contents could not be displayed Error stating file
'/home/frankcox/Documents': No such file or directory

I don't have a directory called Documents.

Is the default directory name hard-coded into Evince?  I can't find any way to
change it to a directory that I actually do have so I won't see this error
message every time.

I could put a symbolic link named Documents in my home directory but I don't
really want to...

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[Tim-163]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 21:29 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:
> When I open a document from Evince (File-Open) I always get a window
> that says
> this:
>
>  "The folder contents could not be displayed Error stating file
> '/home/frankcox/Documents': No such file or directory
>
> I don't have a directory called Documents.

Me either, but I don't see that error.  But that might be because I've
customised something else.  I don't think Evince is hardcoded to that
location, but is using XDG environment variables for its starting point.

There's an xdg folders/file thingo that presets standard directories
used for certain things, (documents, downloads, etc.).  Programs using
those common file types, will use those locations by default (Evince,
OpenOffice.org, Firefox, etc.).

In my case, I've set them to ~/local/documents/, ~/local/downloads/,
etc., and created those locations, since I want a less cluttered
homespace, and since I have a similar ~/server/documents/ and
~/server/downloads/, etc., that I usually use, and I want a simple way
to keep things in order.

For system-wide configuration, see:
/etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf
/etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults

Read the opening comments in both of them.  If you dump all your files
into ~/data/, for instance, you could set all the locations to the same
directory.

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[Frank Cox-2]

On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:44:38 +1030
Tim wrote:

> For system-wide configuration, see:
> /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf
> /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults

Aha!  That's the solution, indeed.

For an individual user, you can edit the file ~.config/user-dirs.dirs to
reflect the directories that you actually want to use for this stuff.

Now I can finally configure this stuff to work the way I want it to.

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[Aaron Konstam]

On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 21:29 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:

> When I open a document from Evince (File-Open) I always get a window that says
> this:
>
>  "The folder contents could not be displayed Error stating file
> '/home/frankcox/Documents': No such file or directory
>
> I don't have a directory called Documents.
>
> Is the default directory name hard-coded into Evince?  I can't find any way to
> change it to a directory that I actually do have so I won't see this error
> message every time.
>
> I could put a symbolic link named Documents in my home directory but I don't
> really want to...
>

What you say is strange. Documents is one of the directories created by
the system in every home directory. I just tried this. evince will find
any appropriate files in the Documents sub-directory in your home
directory and then give you the choice to go to other directories to
look for file to view.

So I guess evince has going to the Documents directory first built in.
create a Documents directory in your home directory and all will be
well.
>
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[Ed Greshko]

Aaron Konstam wrote:

> On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 21:29 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:
>  
>> When I open a document from Evince (File-Open) I always get a window that says
>> this:
>>
>>  "The folder contents could not be displayed Error stating file
>> '/home/frankcox/Documents': No such file or directory
>>
>> I don't have a directory called Documents.
>>
>> Is the default directory name hard-coded into Evince?  I can't find any way to
>> change it to a directory that I actually do have so I won't see this error
>> message every time.
>>
>> I could put a symbolic link named Documents in my home directory but I don't
>> really want to...
>>
>>    
> What you say is strange. Documents is one of the directories created by
> the system in every home directory. I just tried this. evince will find
> any appropriate files in the Documents sub-directory in your home
> directory and then give you the choice to go to other directories to
> look for file to view.
>  

Actually probably not so strange if your home directories were created

in previous version that didn't create a Documents directory upon user
creation and you've been doing upgrades instead of fresh installs.  Or,
you've been doing fresh installs but keep a separate /home partition
that you don't touch during installs.
> So I guess evince has going to the Documents directory first built in.
> create a Documents directory in your home directory and all will be
> well.
>  
I, for one, am resistant to change along with not liking the "Windows
concept" of manipulating me to putting my "documents" in a Documents
directory and my "downloads" into a Download directory.  I like every
application to start in my $HOME directory.  So, doing what you suggest
doesn't make things "well" for me.

Besides, things are done in an inconsistent manner.  For example, if I
start "gnome-terminal"  from the menus in a Gnome session it will start
in $HOME.  But, if I start it from the menus in a KDE session it will
start in $HOME/Documents.  To change the behavior I need to edit the
menu item and change the "Work Path" since someone thought it would be a
good idea to default to that directory.

Starting evince from the menus results in the same behavior from within
a KDE session or a Gnome session.  But, editing the evince menu item and
changing the "Work Path" has no effect.  That would probably confuse the
hell out of many folks since when you first go to edit the "Work Path"
it is set to $HOME/Documents so the logical assumption is that you've
found the right place to change it.

So, one has to "know" which applications take their cue from xdg
settings and which ones from menu settings and maybe which ones use
their own methods to define default paths.

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[Frank Cox-2]

On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:53:17 -0600
Aaron Konstam wrote:

> What you say is strange. Documents is one of the directories created by
> the system in every home directory.

I don't like that behaviour -- I have my own scheme for home directory
organization that I've been using for some time and I have no particular reason
to change it.

Back when this xdg thing showed up, I found out how to disable it (edit
either /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf or ~/.config/user-dirs.conf to include
enabled=False) and have been doing that ever since.

Prior to reading Tim's reply to my question, I had never realized that these
"xdg-aware" programs were pulling their default directories out of
~/.config/user-dirs.dirs.  In fact, I hadn't realized that there was such a
thing as an xdg-aware program.  By editing that file to include the directory
names that I really do use, everything now works swimmingly.

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[Roberto Ragusa]

Ed Greshko wrote:

> Besides, things are done in an inconsistent manner.  For example, if I
> start "gnome-terminal"  from the menus in a Gnome session it will start
> in $HOME.  But, if I start it from the menus in a KDE session it will
> start in $HOME/Documents.  To change the behavior I need to edit the
> menu item and change the "Work Path" since someone thought it would be a
> good idea to default to that directory.

So we actually have:
- the obvious base directory for the user ($HOME)
- the obvious base directory for that kind of files ($HOME/Downloads)
- the obvious preferred behavior chosen by the menu creator ($HOME/Documents)
- the obvious directory chosen by the user (where he saved last time)

And I actually still miss the best of all:
- the current working directory

If I'm in a console and type

  cd /mnt/documents/finance/reports/2009/11/03
  oowriter

I would really like that the save-as file selector would
_not_ open on the "obvious" places, but open in the current directory
(you know, it's called current for a reason).
Then, when I close oowriter, I run

  inkscape

and it should default to the cwd too. And so on.

Add to this that I would really like to open nonexistent files:

  oowriter abc.doc

when abc.doc does not exist. In this way I can just save instead of save-as.
And it would be nice if the app let me save an empty document; so I can
save immediately before writing anything.

OK, I really had to say that. :-)

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[Patrick O'Callaghan-2]

On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 21:16 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote:

> Ed Greshko wrote:
>
> > Besides, things are done in an inconsistent manner.  For example, if I
> > start "gnome-terminal"  from the menus in a Gnome session it will start
> > in $HOME.  But, if I start it from the menus in a KDE session it will
> > start in $HOME/Documents.  To change the behavior I need to edit the
> > menu item and change the "Work Path" since someone thought it would be a
> > good idea to default to that directory.
>
> So we actually have:
> - the obvious base directory for the user ($HOME)
> - the obvious base directory for that kind of files ($HOME/Downloads)
> - the obvious preferred behavior chosen by the menu creator ($HOME/Documents)
> - the obvious directory chosen by the user (where he saved last time)
>
> And I actually still miss the best of all:
> - the current working directory
>
> If I'm in a console and type
>
>   cd /mnt/documents/finance/reports/2009/11/03
>   oowriter
>
> I would really like that the save-as file selector would
> _not_ open on the "obvious" places, but open in the current directory
> (you know, it's called current for a reason).

I couldn't agree more. I find this behaviour maddening. I imagine it's
because when started from the GUI the concept of current directory is
vague at best, but when starting from the Shell they definitely should
take note of it.

It's also infuriating that every time I need to store a file using one
of the standard file dialogues, e.g. from Firefox, I have to navigate to
the right place *every time*. Even within the same session of the app,
there's no short-term memory of the last place I stored a file.

As someone very wisely said, GUI apps are not easy to use, they're just
easy to learn.

poc

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[Aaron Konstam]

On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 00:26 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:

> Aaron Konstam wrote:
> > On Mon, 2009-11-02 at 21:29 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:
> >  
> >> When I open a document from Evince (File-Open) I always get a window that says
> >> this:
> >>
> >>  "The folder contents could not be displayed Error stating file
> >> '/home/frankcox/Documents': No such file or directory
> >>
> >> I don't have a directory called Documents.
> >>
> >> Is the default directory name hard-coded into Evince?  I can't find any way to
> >> change it to a directory that I actually do have so I won't see this error
> >> message every time.
> >>
> >> I could put a symbolic link named Documents in my home directory but I don't
> >> really want to...
> >>
> >>    
> > What you say is strange. Documents is one of the directories created by
> > the system in every home directory. I just tried this. evince will find
> > any appropriate files in the Documents sub-directory in your home
> > directory and then give you the choice to go to other directories to
> > look for file to view.
> >  
> Actually probably not so strange if your home directories were created
> in previous version that didn't create a Documents directory upon user
> creation and you've been doing upgrades instead of fresh installs.  Or,
> you've been doing fresh installs but keep a separate /home partition
> that you don't touch during installs.
> > So I guess evince has going to the Documents directory first built in.
> > create a Documents directory in your home directory and all will be
> > well.
> >  
> I, for one, am resistant to change along with not liking the "Windows
> concept" of manipulating me to putting my "documents" in a Documents
> directory and my "downloads" into a Download directory.  I like every
> application to start in my $HOME directory.  So, doing what you suggest
> doesn't make things "well" for me.

Well different opinions make things interesting. I like that Documents
go into Documents and Pictures into Pictures , etc.
Different opinions make things interesting. Of course , it is obvious I
did not know about XDG, so I learned something.
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[Ed Greshko]

Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:

> On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 21:16 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote:
>  
>> Ed Greshko wrote:
>>
>>    
>>> Besides, things are done in an inconsistent manner.  For example, if I
>>> start "gnome-terminal"  from the menus in a Gnome session it will start
>>> in $HOME.  But, if I start it from the menus in a KDE session it will
>>> start in $HOME/Documents.  To change the behavior I need to edit the
>>> menu item and change the "Work Path" since someone thought it would be a
>>> good idea to default to that directory.
>>>      
>> So we actually have:
>> - the obvious base directory for the user ($HOME)
>> - the obvious base directory for that kind of files ($HOME/Downloads)
>> - the obvious preferred behavior chosen by the menu creator ($HOME/Documents)
>> - the obvious directory chosen by the user (where he saved last time)
>>
>> And I actually still miss the best of all:
>> - the current working directory
>>
>> If I'm in a console and type
>>
>>   cd /mnt/documents/finance/reports/2009/11/03
>>   oowriter
>>
>> I would really like that the save-as file selector would
>> _not_ open on the "obvious" places, but open in the current directory
>> (you know, it's called current for a reason).
>>    
>
> I couldn't agree more. I find this behaviour maddening. I imagine it's
> because when started from the GUI the concept of current directory is
> vague at best, but when starting from the Shell they definitely should
> take note of it.
>
> It's also infuriating that every time I need to store a file using one
> of the standard file dialogues, e.g. from Firefox, I have to navigate to
> the right place *every time*. Even within the same session of the app,
> there's no short-term memory of the last place I stored a file.
>
> As someone very wisely said, GUI apps are not easy to use, they're just
> easy to learn.
>
> poc
>
>  

And, to boot, someone also thought is was a good idea to name files with

uppercase names in an O/S that is case sensitive.  :-(



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[Tim-163]

On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 08:02 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
> And, to boot, someone also thought is was a good idea to name files
> with uppercase names in an O/S that is case sensitive.  :-(

Yeah!  :-\  

I'm getting a bit sick of this following the worst examples set (by
Microsoft).  We even see moronically stupid Windows-like advice about
sticking all your files inside a documents directory, then sub-dividing
that into other things (documents/downloads, documents/music, etc.).
Geez, "documents" is not a substitute for data, or simply files.  If
it's not a "document" it's NOT a bloody document.

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[Frank Cox-2]

On Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:33:24 +1030
Tim wrote:

> "documents" is not a substitute for data, or simply files.  If
> it's not a "document" it's NOT a bloody document.

Got any documentation to back that up?  *tee hee*

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[Craig White-6]

On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 14:33 +1030, Tim wrote:

> On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 08:02 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
> > And, to boot, someone also thought is was a good idea to name files
> > with uppercase names in an O/S that is case sensitive.  :-(
>
> Yeah!  :-\  
>
> I'm getting a bit sick of this following the worst examples set (by
> Microsoft).  We even see moronically stupid Windows-like advice about
> sticking all your files inside a documents directory, then sub-dividing
> that into other things (documents/downloads, documents/music, etc.).
> Geez, "documents" is not a substitute for data, or simply files.  If
> it's not a "document" it's NOT a bloody document.

----
Considering that knowledgeable users will be able to set things up as
they choose then the consideration for the less knowledgeable users or
those moving from the other OS's can find things more easily or possibly
back up their needed files this hardly seems to be something to get all
worked up about. When programs look for documents in the same consistent
folder or want to save documents in the same consistent folder it's hard
to argue with the logic of this.

Craig


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[Ed Greshko]

Craig White wrote:

> On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 14:33 +1030, Tim wrote:
>  
>> On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 08:02 +0800, Ed Greshko wrote:
>>    
>>> And, to boot, someone also thought is was a good idea to name files
>>> with uppercase names in an O/S that is case sensitive.  :-(
>>>      
>> Yeah!  :-\  
>>
>> I'm getting a bit sick of this following the worst examples set (by
>> Microsoft).  We even see moronically stupid Windows-like advice about
>> sticking all your files inside a documents directory, then sub-dividing
>> that into other things (documents/downloads, documents/music, etc.).
>> Geez, "documents" is not a substitute for data, or simply files.  If
>> it's not a "document" it's NOT a bloody document.
>>    
> ----
> Considering that knowledgeable users will be able to set things up as
> they choose then the consideration for the less knowledgeable users or
> those moving from the other OS's can find things more easily or possibly
> back up their needed files this hardly seems to be something to get all
> worked up about. When programs look for documents in the same consistent
> folder or want to save documents in the same consistent folder it's hard
> to argue with the logic of this.
>
>  

Yes, I suppose it makes perfect sense for Gimp to use the settings in

~/.confg/user-dirs.dirs that contains:

XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/Documents"
XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/Music"
XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/Pictures"

and by default go to the "$HOME/Documents" directory.

And since XDG seems as if it may becoming the method to define
"preferred" locations and since "less knowledgeable" users are prone to
defaulting to GUIs it is a good thing that there is a "settings" menu
item called something like "Preferred Locations" which brings up a GUI
that guides you through changing the settings contained in
~/.confg/user-dirs.dirs.

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[Roberto Ragusa]

Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 21:16 +0100, Roberto Ragusa wrote:

>> I would really like that the save-as file selector would
>> _not_ open on the "obvious" places, but open in the current directory
>> (you know, it's called current for a reason).
>
> I couldn't agree more. I find this behaviour maddening. I imagine it's
> because when started from the GUI the concept of current directory is
> vague at best, but when starting from the Shell they definitely should
> take note of it.

The GUI should acquire the cwd concept.
Having the application launcher in the file explorer window instead of
near the taskbar would be a good start ("I'm starting this app to work here").

Another idea could be to have a really quick "bookmark" feature on file
explorer windows and then show them in file requesters for easy choice.
Having it sort and/or colored by age/use would be perfect (like kate does
on filenames when you have many documents open).

> It's also infuriating that every time I need to store a file using one
> of the standard file dialogues, e.g. from Firefox, I have to navigate to
> the right place *every time*. Even within the same session of the app,
> there's no short-term memory of the last place I stored a file.

How can one be surprised that many people save everything on the Desktop?

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[Tim-163]

On Tue, 2009-11-03 at 17:08 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> It's also infuriating that every time I need to store a file using one
> of the standard file dialogues, e.g. from Firefox, I have to navigate
> to the right place *every time*. Even within the same session of the
> app, there's no short-term memory of the last place I stored a file.

I found that sort of thing a right pain with gvim.  If I were editing
files on my website, I'd run the application, navigate to a file, work
on it, save it, then go to open another file, and I'd have to start
again from ~, as it didn't open the file lister in the same location
where I'd just saved a file.  That gets annoying, really fast, when
you're working on a lot of files.

That was with something like Fedora 5, which, thankfully, it stopped
doing around Fedora 6 or 7.  One of the reasons I only half-heartedly
used CentOS on a server was because it still did that stupid behaviour
on all the versions of CentOS that I'd tried.

At least, when running gvim from the command line, it started with the
current directory.  So you could cd to your server space, then run gvim,
and have less messing around.

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