Environment variables for portable apps

[J-P-77]

patched to allows u to change the download directory, so u can make it more portable, ex. (portableapps.com)

[thp]

You can already use GPODDER_HOME in the current version, can't you? As far as I can tell, the only requirement that you have that isn't satisfied yet is the GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR variable to control downloads? But then again, the idea is that GPODDER_HOME now works as download directory, anyway?

[J-P-77]

My whole point was to separate the downloads directory from the config files, example(s): 1, if you have a smaller USB drive, you could redirect the downloads to the local drive or their music directory. 2. Using Google Drive (or other web service) to sync the config files and not the podcast downloads (because they could have large file sizes). I do know about gpodder sync service. Just thought it would be nice to give people some choices.

[thp]

In that case, can you rewrite the patch so that the GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR can be set by the environment? For this, you have to do the following:

• in src/gpodder/__init__.py, the set_home method should only set the "downloads" variable if 'GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR' not in os.environ
• in src/gpodder/__init__.py, below the block if home != default_home:, check if GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR is set, and if so, set the downloads variable accordingly (and also print a message like for the "home != default_home" case ("Storing downloads in ... (GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR is set)")

Your patch should also add information about how to use GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR to the README file, similar to how GPODDER_HOME usage is described there.

I guess this change would then allow you to achieve what you want? You can then set the data directory using GPODDER_HOME and the downloads directory using GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR. If you don't specify GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR, but do specify GPODDER_HOME, the Downloads directory will be below GPODDER_HOME, just like now.

[thp]

I believe your last commit "Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/master'" messed up something, it contains lots of unrelated changes. Can you rebase your patch as a single commit on top of the current master branch? If not, I'll just go ahead and probably implement the GPODDER_DOWNLOAD_DIR environment variable support myself, as discussed in bug 466: http://gpodder.org/bug/466 - please comment if for some reason this won't cover all the use cases that you want to satisfy with your patch, and I'm happy to discuss on what else needs adding/fixing.

[J-P-77]

im really new using git. im still trying to understand it.

[nascentt]

Does this mean, the ability to chose a separate download directory is now present in the original gpodder trunk? + How is it possible?

[thp]

Implemented in a similar way in commit 15e8137 (see http://gpodder.org/bug/466 for details).