$HOME/.Nooooooo!

[Tony Linde]

Hi Pierre,

I can certainly understand the reasoning but would like to find a solution
to the problems it causes.

Maybe a $HOME/.ivoa directory and all VObs apps place their own profile and
other data underneath that (so, $HOME/.ivoa/aladin) - *providing* we can
find some way in a windows machine over which the user has no admin
privileges to redirect that directory to some other place.

Any ideas anyone?

T.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-apps at eso.org [mailto:owner-apps at eso.org] On 
> Behalf Of Pierre Fernique
> Sent: 13 February 2007 16:30
> To: apps at ivoa.net
> Subject: Re: $HOME/.Nooooooo!
> 
> Tony Linde wrote:
> > I'll raise this again as a separate topic.
> > 
> > We're getting problems with (plastic) apps using .Xxxx 
> directories to 
> > store temporary files.
> > 
> > Doing a demo the other day on a (WinXP) machine configured by the 
> > department (and so not changeable) we kept getting 'profile storage 
> > space exceeded' messages from the OS. This because all the 
> apps were 
> > using $HOME/.xxx directories as scratch space: this area in 
> Windows is 
> > for user profile information not general storage. We need 
> some way that 
> > users can point to some other 'home' directory for AR/PLASTIC apps.
> > 
> > The main offender was Aladin because it stored a couple of 
> VOTable files 
> > in the $HOME/.aladin directory.
> > 
> > Can I ask that anyone writing an application which might be 
> run under 
> > windows *not* store anything in the $HOME/.xxx type of directory. 
> > Temporary files should go in the Temp directory and 
> application profiles 
> > in a $HOME/Application Data/xxx directory.
> > 
> > I see that gaim, firefox, thunderbird etc all do this 
> correctly - can 
> > someone look up how they handle it and place the advice up here?
> > 
> > And apologies if any of this is duff information - feel 
> free to correct 
> > the above if I am wrong.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Tony.
> > 
> 
> Hi Toni, Hi all,
> 
> I am sorry that your Aladin demonstration failed due to a quota disk 
> problem. The current way for working around this problem was 
> to create a 
> symbolic link to a .aladin directory in another location. But I 
> understand that during a demonstration it is not super.
> 
> About the principle of using OS dedicated temporary location and 
> application profile mechanism, it is unfortunately more 
> difficult that 
> you were explaining, and by experience that can become a real 
> difficulty.
> 
> Consider the operating systems that Aladin is trying to 
> support you will 
> see that each of them has their own solution 
> (Unix/Mac/Windows/...). And 
> if you are looking only Windows systems, you can see that each major 
> version has also is own mechanism, and not always unique (C:\TEMP, 
> C:\WINDOWS\TEMP, C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Local 
> Settings\Temp....) And I am pretty sure that Vista is using another 
> location. And it is the same things for application setting location 
> (.INI, Windows registry,...).
> 
> For my part I chose the more generic solution that I know : the 
> $home/.directory and simple ASCII configuration files.
> 
> Another reason of my choice: it is really easier to explain to the 
> Aladin users that they have to look into their $HOME/.aladin 
> directory 
> instead of explaining each possible case.
> 
> Regards
> Pierre
>