default directories

[Robert Graham Merkel]

Clark Jones writes:
 > Dave Peticolas wrote:
 > > 
 > > Someone recently posted a request for having a user-configurable
 > > default directory which the file opener would show by default.
 > > 
 > > I've been thinking about this and it seems to me that it might be
 > > better and more convenient just to have GnuCash use the directory
 > > of the last opened file. Thus, the user would not need to explicitly
 > > set a default directory.
 > > 
 > > Any preferences there?
 > > 
 > > dave
 > 
 > How about having an environment variable to define it?  That way if
 > someone has to "look" in other directories from time to time, but has
 > correctly set the environment variable in their .login or .cshrc or
 > whatever, they'll still be popped back to their "base" directory.
 > 
 > Although nothing like gnucash, the stuff that I work on in my "day"
 > job makes heavy use of environment variables to set various things and
 > allow the [ab]user to set them as [s]he sees fit -- although it takes
 > a bit of "explaining" to the new user, we get lots of kudos from folks
 > who've used it a while.  (The one downside for this is that it won't
 > work under M$ software that masquerades as operating systems, as far
 > as I know.)

We've largely gone down the route of making things configurable from
the GUI.  The items that aren't configurable from the UI are mostly
things that only GnuCash would use.

While I know that many of us would prefer to have things configurable
from the command line or from config files, we've gone down the
GUI-configurable route for the benefit of our less computer-savvy
users and there's no reason not to be consistent, IMHO.

So, if you do decide to make it configurable, make it configurable
from the GUI.

My 4 Pacific Pesetas worth :)

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Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk@mira.net

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