Add support for XDG Base Directory Specification

[mdebusk]

Boxes currently looks in $HOME for its user configuration file. This practice clutters $HOME with countless dotfiles and makes organization difficult. The XDG Base Directory Specification helps to solve this problem by putting a program-specific directory under (usually) $HOME/.config. I would love to see boxes support this.

I am currently running boxes version 1.2 on Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS.

[tsjensen]

Thanks for sharing this idea! It seems to me to be a more generalized version of #5.

The XDG Spec has some weird requirements, such as having to detect when a user logs on, and creating a directory at that time. We would probably not be able to to that. But we could at least know about the environment variables and look for config files in the right places.

I think in addition to precedence etc. it is necessary to be able to read more than 1 config file. In that way, we could have the config that is shipped with boxes, and user-specific files which add to that.

[mdebusk]

Thanks for sharing this idea! It seems to me to be a more generalized version of #5.

I must have misunderstood #5. I thought it was asking to be able to choose which config file to use, e.g., specifying it on the command line.

we could at least know about the environment variables and look for config files in the right places.

That's all I was really asking for.

I think in addition to precedence etc. it is necessary to be able to read more than 1 config file. In that way, we could have the config that is shipped with boxes, and user-specific files which add to that.

Yes. I was thinking I might want to edit a couple of the styles to include vim's folding markers. That's not something most people would want, I believe, but it'd save me a couple of minutes a year. :D

[tsjensen]

I must have misunderstood #5. I thought it was asking to be able to choose which config file to use, e.g., specifying it on the command line.

Well, never mind! (We have the -f option already.)

I'll keep both issues open until we have this sorted out. Please feel free to contribute! These days, boxes evolves mainly through contributions.

[mdebusk]

Please feel free to contribute! These days, boxes evolves mainly through contributions.

If I were at all competent with programming, I would. This looks like a fun project.

[tsjensen]

I'm actually looking at this feature request again. XDG ist somewhat overengineered and not very precise, it seems, and there is discussion on the best degree to which to implement it. But it also seems to me that we should implement at least some of it.

My current take is this:

Precedence	Path	Source	Type	Comment
1	cmd line -f	boxes legacy	file(!) or dir	should be a file, but could now also be a dir
2	$BOXES	boxes legacy	file(!) or dir	should be a file, but could now also be a dir
3	$HOME	boxes legacy	dir
4	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/boxes	XDG	dir
5	$HOME/.config/boxes	XDG	dir
6	/etc/xdg/boxes	XDG	dir
7	the hard-coded system-wide config file mentioned in man page	boxes legacy	file
8	/usr/local/share/boxes	XDG	dir	if it were a file, then only as per (7)
9	/usr/share/boxes	XDG	dir	if it were a file, then only as per (7)

The XDG environment variable $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS would not be supported. However, its default value would be supported as (8) and (9) above.

Whenever the type is dir in the table above, in that directory we'll look for these files, in this order:

1. .boxes
2. box-designs
3. boxes-config
4. boxes

As soon as the first valid file is found, we use that and stop the search.

What do you think? Would this be sufficient?

[mdebusk]

I think this would be excellent.

[tsjensen]

Ok, I am using this comment to document the new behavior until it is done. So this comment may change a few times.

Prec.	Path	Source	Type	Comment
1	cmd line -f	boxes legacy	file(!) or dir	should be a file, but could now also be a dir; must be present if specified
2	$BOXES	boxes legacy	file(!) or dir	should be a file, but could now also be a dir; must be present if set
3	$HOME	boxes legacy	dir
4	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/boxes	XDG	dir
5	$HOME/.config/boxes	XDG	dir
6	Linux/Unix: the hard-coded system-wide config file mentioned in man page Windows: .cfg file located next to .exe file with the same base name, default to C:\boxes.cfg	boxes legacy	file
7	/etc/xdg/boxes	XDG	dir	likely not present on Win
8	/usr/local/share/boxes	XDG	dir	if it were a file, then only as per (6); likely not present on Win
9	/usr/share/boxes	XDG	dir	if it were a file, then only as per (6); likely not present on Win

The XDG environment variable $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS will not be supported. However, its default value would be supported as (8) and (9) above. In general, XDG will be supported on Windows, but in practice, this will probably only be useful for $HOME/.config, because the global directories are unlikely to exist.

Whenever the type is dir in the table above, in that directory we'll look for these files, in this order:

Linux/Unix	Windows
.boxes (boxes legacy) box-designs (new behavior) boxes-config (boxes legacy) boxes (boxes legacy)	boxes.cfg (boxes legacy) box-designs.cfg (new behavior) boxes-config (boxes legacy)

As soon as the first valid file is found, we use that and stop the search.

[tsjensen]

Done. This will be in the v2.1.0 release.

[tsjensen]

By the way, code for the already completed new features is collected on the rc_2.1.0 branch, in case you want to have a look.

[mdebusk]

On 2021-03-19 16:04, Thomas Jensen wrote: By the way, code for the already completed new features is collected on the rc_2.1.0 [1] branch, in case you want to have a look.

Thanks, I'll do that. :)

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