[Mono-list] Environment.GetFolderPath() Questions...

[Jonathan Pryor]

On Sat, 2004-11-06 at 12:45, Kevin White wrote:
> Hi all, it's me again...
> 
> In writing a sample program that goes through the special folders, I
> get lots of empty strings.  Are they empty because they aren't
> implemented, or because in my particular environment they happen to be
> empty (whereas in someone else's circumstances they would be
> populated)?

They are empty because there is no suitable, portable, equivalent.

I'll go through each in turn from the Gnome perspective, but KDE will
likely have different reasons/rationale, and I'm not familiar with KDE.

> My results:
> 
>               Desktop ==> /home/kewhite/Desktop
>              Programs ==>

What should Programs be?  This is normally C:\Program Files, under which
is a directory per program/suite.  On Unix, programs aren't normally
organized in this fashion, so this doesn't make sense.

Alternatively, the directories /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, /opt/bin,
/opt/local/bin/, ~/bin (etc.), would work.  However, only a single
string can be returned from Environment.GetFolderPath().

>              Personal ==> /home/kewhite
>             Favorites ==>

Favorites isn't a directory, it's a file, and it varies between browsers
(for example, Epiphany uses ~/.gnome2/epiphany/bookmarks.rdf).

>               Startup ==>

Startup isn't a directory; it's a combination of shell scrips
(/etc/profile, ~/.bashrc, ~/.xinitrc, etc.), and it's non-trivial to
determine which scripts apply (since it depends on the shell the user
uses, and e.g. ~/.bashrc may explicitly include another file, ad
nauseum).

>                Recent ==>

Recent isn't a directory.  It's either a file or a location in GConf,
I'm not sure which.

>                SendTo ==>

Has no Linux equivalent that I'm aware of, though
~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts might work.

>             StartMenu ==>

The Gnome menu layout is based on applying rules to .desktop files found
in various directories.  It's not a single directory.

>               MyMusic ==>

A directory for storing music hasn't been agreed upon at
freedesktop.org.  This may happen in the future, though arguably the
user's home directory should be returned for now.

>      DesktopDirectory ==> /home/kewhite/Desktop
>            MyComputer ==>

For awhile, Gnome didn't have a My Computer equivalent.  Now it does,
and it's a virtual directory.

>             Templates ==>

This was added to Nautilus 2.4, IIRC, and it's ~/Templates.  This may
change, though.

>       ApplicationData ==> /home/kewhite/.config
>  LocalApplicationData ==> /home/kewhite/.local/share
>         InternetCache ==>

This is dependent upon the browser, and for Gecko-based browsers, this
will have a random string in the directory name (for security
purposes).  For example, ~/.mozilla/username/XXXXXXXX.slt/Cache.

>               Cookies ==>
>               History ==>

Also dependent on the browser.  See above.

> CommonApplicationData ==> /usr/share
>                System ==>

This is C:\Windows\System32, IIRC.  I suppose /usr/lib/, /usr/local/lib,
etc., would qualify, but as with Programs, only a single string can be
returned from Environment.GetFolderPath().

>          ProgramFiles ==>

Ditto.

>            MyPictures ==>

No common equivalent exists, though Gnome 2.10 might tackle this.

>    CommonProgramFiles ==>

On Windows, C:\Program Files\Common, IIRC.  I have no idea what this
would be for Unix, though /lib, /usr/lib, etc., might work (returning us
to the "Environment.GetFolderPath() can only return one string" issue).

 - Jon