Installation

[Adrien Monteleone]

> On Feb 13, 2018, at 4:15 AM, Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:
> 
> On Tuesday, 13 February 2018 09:19:36 GMT Adrien Monteleone wrote:
>> I stand corrected on the lock file, though other apps that I see use them
>> make them hidden so the user isn’t confused.
>> 
>> I still don’t see ANY other software dumping backups or log files into my
>> data directories for any other file type. Gnucash is the only one.
>> Everything else seems to be happy and quite functional with either
>> /var/log, /tmp or some variant depending on the OS. I have yet to open a
>> data directory and see a pile of log or state-backups mixed in along with
>> my actual data file I’m looking for. Have I just been lucky all these
>> years? Why are users so confused then if this is ‘standard procedure?’
>> (they should be quite used to it after all)
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Adrien
>> 
> 
> Making the lock hidden makes good sense, but that would break backward 
> compatability for precisely those users that need a lock the most - different 
> machines with probably different GC versions with data on a network share.

Other apps have no problem looking for their ‘hidden lock file’ to keep users from opening the file more than once from different systems, even over a network. The lock file does not need to be visible to the user for the app to see it and use it. (commonly accomplished with a preceding “.” in the file name or setting a ‘hidden’ flag)

Certainly, newer versions using the hidden lock file, could easily still look for the non-hidden one. Though I suppose if the older version didn’t know to look for it, that could be an issue if the non-hidden one weren’t already there. However, if a user has different versions of GC on two different machines accessing the same data file, they are already asking for trouble. Sometimes, backwards compatibility should be broken. This might be one of those cases, though it should not be the only break. (it should be introduced either with 3.0 if still possible, or held till 4.0)


> 
> On the number of backups and strategy in GC, I agree, the number of files that 
> can end up created in the data directory is unlike any other software that I 
> know of.  OTOH, financial records are probably more valuable (and also probably 
> a lot more work to recreate) than the average edited jpg or odt "letter to 
> aunt Mabel" file, so a bit of auto-retention isn't a bad thing.
> 
> Heck, I'm not even sure that there is any point to the log files - the once or 
> twice that I've wanted to reply one has involved business features which at 
> the time didn't (and AFAIK, still don't) get logged.  Maybe a debug switch 
> somewhere to enable logging for those that want it?  
> 
> Hence my idea of a parallel-named backups sub-directory.  Making the backups 
> hidden would also work.  but keep them with (close to) the data file, not in 
> some user-definable random place, IMHO.

I wasn’t suggesting random, though I suppose power users could be allowed to customize locations. I was suggesting OS standard locations that other apps use and that OS vendors recommend. Logs for *nix OS types generally go in /var/log/appname, Windows generally uses C:\Users\%\AppData\company\appname.

Saved-state files are a little more varied. But generally, /tmp/appname is useful for session storage. For something more persistent a location like ~/Library/Application Support/appname, or ~/.appname or C:\Users\%\AppData\company\appname as the case may be. (all standard and recommended targets for such files by the OS vendors)

This change would probably not affect older files or GC versions, so it could be introduced at any time.

Regards,
Adrien

> 
> Maf.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Maf. King
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