Matthew Lyon3d ago

mac users:

You download a techincally-oriented GUI app with a plain text config file format (let's say KDL or such) that you're encouraged to open. You expect it to be located in...

I'd love to hear thoughts on this in the replies

~/Library/Application Support/com.vendorname.prog/
~/Library/Preferences/com.vendorname.prog.file
$XDG_HOME/prog/
somewhere else
Poll ends at .
Show threadJohn Hugg2d ago
@mattly if it’s something I’m expected to edit, just use dot files? Or does Apple make that a permission thing to read?
Show threadMatthew Lyon
@hugg the thing about XDG_HOME is that if you’ve customized it, you probably customized it in a login shell, and th environment variable isn’t available to an app you double-clicked in the finder; getting it requieres invoking a login shell and reading its environment
Mar 23 at 2:46pmWeb
Show threadJohn Hugg2d ago
@mattly I guess that makes sense. If it's one file, Preferences makes sense to me (#old). If anything more than one file, I guess app support? But only my 2c.
Show threadMatthew Lyon2d ago

@hugg so the way the system APIs work,

“Configs" belong in Application Support
“Preferences" are plist files which belong in Preferences

it seems if you want to have a cross-platform config file format, macOS wants you to put it in Application Support

which many apps also stuff cache files in, making it a real bear to backup

UGH