Provide a way to customize the xdg-user-dirs #33282

tiramiseb · 2018-01-01T17:14:01Z

The xdg-user-dirs package contains a file named etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults.

A module allowing to customize this file would be great.

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

jtojnar · 2018-01-01T23:55:21Z

GNOME users, at least, already have ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs generated in their profile by the GNOME module. That would override the XDG module.

tiramiseb · 2018-01-02T07:23:49Z

The xdg-user-dirs-update command, executed in the GNOME session script you are referring to, reads the user-dirs.defaults file, translates it if needed and places it in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs. Yes, this is exactly what I am talking about.

If etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults can be customized, then the GNOME session script would copy the customized one.

lasandell · 2018-01-12T23:34:41Z

This looks like a duplicate of #16200.

The environment variable $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS determines the search paths for user-dirs.defaults. This is currently defined as a profile-relative path variable. For this to work, I think it would also need to define /etc/xdg as a profile non-relative path so that a module could produce the user-dirs.defaults file in that path.

dasj19 · 2019-08-21T17:23:05Z

I'm also interested in a way to customize xdg-user-dirs

jtojnar · 2019-08-21T17:43:32Z

There is little need for dedicated options, you can just use

{
  environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.defaults".text = ''
    DESKTOP=Desktop
    DOCUMENTS=Documents
    DOWNLOAD=Downloads
    MUSIC=Music
    PICTURES=Pictures
    PUBLICSHARE=Public
    TEMPLATES=Templates
    VIDEOS=Videos
  '';
}

in your configuration.nix.

dasj19 · 2019-08-22T08:27:08Z

@jtojnar It does not work...
What I have tried so far in a VM:

removing the user homedir + nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade
changing environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.conf".text to environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.dirs".text + removing the user homedir + nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade
changing environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.conf".text to environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.default".text + removing the user homedir + nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade

I am using Gnome as a DE and the following user-dirs structure:

environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.conf".text = ''
    XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/system/desktop"
    XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/downloads"
    XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/system/templates"
    XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/system/public"
    XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/documents"
    XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/media/music"
    XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/media/photos"
    XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/media/video"
  '';

jtojnar · 2019-08-22T09:22:40Z

nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade will not be enough. xdg-user-dirs relies on /etc/xdg/autostart to run so you need to re-login for it to be triggered.

dasj19 · 2019-08-22T09:48:49Z

I did reboot the VM after every nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade and then logged in as the unpriviledged user

jtojnar · 2019-08-22T11:33:36Z

Hmm, apparently, it should have been user-dirs.defaults, not user-dirs.default or user-dirs.conf.

dasj19 · 2019-08-24T11:39:38Z

@jtojnar ... sorry for the delay...
But I just tried with only this configuration.nix


{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{

  imports =
    [ # Include the results of the hardware scan.
      ./hardware-configuration.nix
    ];

  # Use the GRUB 2 boot loader.
  boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
  boot.loader.grub.version = 2;

  # Define on which hard drive you want to install Grub.
  boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda"; # or "nodev" for efi only

  networking.hostName = "nixos"; # Define your hostname.

  # Enable the X11 windowing system.
  services.xserver.enable = true;
  services.xserver.layout = "es";

  # Set your time zone.
  time.timeZone = "Europe/Copenhagen";


  environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.defaults".text = ''
    XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/system/desktop"
    XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/downloads"
    XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/system/templates"
    XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/system/public"
    XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/documents"
    XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/media/music"
    XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/media/photos"
    XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/media/video"
  '';

  # Enable the GNOME Desktop Environment.
  services.xserver.displayManager.gdm.enable = true;
  services.xserver.desktopManager.gnome3.enable = true;
}

And it does not use the user-dirs I configure above

jtojnar · 2019-08-24T13:36:29Z

Okay, there are several issues here:

As Provide a way to customize the xdg-user-dirs #33282 (comment) correctly points out, XDG_CONFIG_DIRS is profile-relative variable and since it is set, /etc/xdg will not be used as per the spec:

If $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS is either not set or empty, a value equal to /etc/xdg should be used.

We could add (pkgs.writeTextFile { name = "user-dirs.defaults"; text = "…"; destination = "/etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults"; }) to environment.systemPackages which would add it to XDG_CONFIG_DIRS but that will conflict with the file from the preset file from the xdg-user-dirs package installed by gnome3 module.
Okay, I have came up with the following abomination to add to your configuration.nix:

  imports = [
    ({lib, pkgs, ...}: {
      environment.systemPackages = lib.mkBefore [
        (pkgs.writeTextFile {
          name = "user-dirs.defaults";
          text = ''
            XDG_DESKTOP_DIR=system/desktop
            XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR=downloads
            XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR=system/templates
            XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR=system/public
            XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR=documents
            XDG_MUSIC_DIR=media/music
            XDG_PICTURES_DIR=media/photos
            XDG_VIDEOS_DIR=media/video
          '';
          destination = "/etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults";
        })
      ];
    })
  ];

But again, it does not work. Turns out we are prefixing the XDG_CONFIG_DIRS with presets when running xdg-user-dirs-update. So we need to patch as well.

With the patch and the horrendous snippet, I can confirm the expected directories were created.

We should try to find out how to make the environment variable contain /etc/xdg before all the profile-related stuff so that the simple solution works.

Previously, we were only adding profile-relative paths to XDG_CONFIG_DIRS variable. That required very ugly hacks like NixOS#33282 (comment) to be able to configure XDG stuff. Now, we are prepending the variable with /etc/xdg, allowing us to simply use `environment.etc."xdg/…"` options.

jtojnar · 2019-08-24T14:14:30Z

#67389 now contains full fix enabling us to use environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.defaults".text as suggested in #33282 (comment).

dasj19 · 2019-08-24T14:46:45Z

Awesome @jtojnnar .... I just built from your branch https://github.com/jtojnar/nixpkgs/tree/xdg-user-dirs and works like a charm.
Thanks a lot, I owe you one

The config I'm currently using after the developments in #67389 is...

  environment.etc."xdg/user-dirs.defaults".text = ''
    DESKTOP=system/desktop
    DOWNLOAD=downloads
    TEMPLATES=system/templates
    PUBLICSHARE=system/public
    DOCUMENTS=documents
    MUSIC=media/music
    PICTURES=media/photos
    VIDEOS=media/video
  '';

cx405 · 2023-03-17T05:54:59Z

@jtojnar @tiramiseb you probably want to reopen this, because functionality implemented here is currently broken.

Please see: #221604

jtojnar · 2023-03-24T15:32:22Z

As mentioned in the other issue, there is a prerequisite of environment.systemPackage = [ pkgs.xdg-user-dirs ] and having something that runs autostart entries (which DEs like GNOME or Plasma do out of the box).

FRidh added 0.kind: enhancement 6.topic: nixos 9.needs: module (new) labels Jan 1, 2018

jtojnar added the 6.topic: freedesktop label Mar 29, 2018

cyounkins mentioned this issue Dec 6, 2018

nixos: Decide and document scope of configuration #51630

Open

jtojnar mentioned this issue Aug 21, 2019

xdg-user-dirs contains no options for configuring the directories it manages. #16200

Closed

jtojnar mentioned this issue Aug 24, 2019

Allow changing xdg-user-dirs with environment.etc #67389

Merged

jtojnar closed this as completed in #67389 Aug 24, 2019

Zimmi48 mentioned this issue Aug 31, 2019

[RFC 0051] Mark stale nixpkgs issues NixOS/rfcs#51

Merged

mtreca mentioned this issue Apr 16, 2020

XDG user-dirs doesn't seem to be working nix-community/home-manager#1159

Closed

cx405 mentioned this issue Mar 17, 2023

xdg-user-dirs is currently broken (Freedesktop, NixOS desktop) #221604

Closed

cx405 mentioned this issue Mar 24, 2023

Feature request: Implement two NixOS options to control the xdg-user-dirs in a better way #222904

Closed

cx405 mentioned this issue Mar 24, 2023

KDE Plasma5 + xdg-user-dir: plasma5 xorg session does not autostart xdg-user-dirs.desktop #222925

Closed

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Provide a way to customize the xdg-user-dirs #33282

Provide a way to customize the xdg-user-dirs #33282

tiramiseb commented Jan 1, 2018

jtojnar commented Jan 1, 2018

tiramiseb commented Jan 2, 2018

lasandell commented Jan 12, 2018

dasj19 commented Aug 21, 2019

jtojnar commented Aug 21, 2019 •

edited

dasj19 commented Aug 22, 2019 •

edited

jtojnar commented Aug 22, 2019

dasj19 commented Aug 22, 2019 •

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jtojnar commented Aug 22, 2019

dasj19 commented Aug 24, 2019

jtojnar commented Aug 24, 2019 •

edited

jtojnar commented Aug 24, 2019

dasj19 commented Aug 24, 2019 •

edited

cx405 commented Mar 17, 2023

jtojnar commented Mar 24, 2023

Provide a way to customize the xdg-user-dirs #33282

Provide a way to customize the xdg-user-dirs #33282

Comments

tiramiseb commented Jan 1, 2018

jtojnar commented Jan 1, 2018

tiramiseb commented Jan 2, 2018

lasandell commented Jan 12, 2018

dasj19 commented Aug 21, 2019

jtojnar commented Aug 21, 2019 • edited

dasj19 commented Aug 22, 2019 • edited

jtojnar commented Aug 22, 2019

dasj19 commented Aug 22, 2019 • edited

jtojnar commented Aug 22, 2019

dasj19 commented Aug 24, 2019

jtojnar commented Aug 24, 2019 • edited

jtojnar commented Aug 24, 2019

dasj19 commented Aug 24, 2019 • edited

cx405 commented Mar 17, 2023

jtojnar commented Mar 24, 2023

jtojnar commented Aug 21, 2019 •

edited

dasj19 commented Aug 22, 2019 •

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dasj19 commented Aug 22, 2019 •

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jtojnar commented Aug 24, 2019 •

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dasj19 commented Aug 24, 2019 •

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