Better default working directory

[tresf]

Better behavior of default working directory:

• Fresh installs of LMMS (e.g. no ~/.lmmsrc.xml) will default to the more browsable, more sane and less conflicting ~/Documents/lmms.
  * No longer prompt to create the home directory.

Note: The Qt4 logic is currently untested.

Closes #1135

[PhysSong]

Fresh installs of LMMS (e.g. no ~/.lmmsrc.xml) will default to the more browsable, more sane and less conflicting ~/Documents/lmms.

👍

No longer prompt to create the home directory.

Could you explain why did you change that?

[zonkmachine]

Note: The Qt4 logic is currently untested.

Tested, works fine.

[tresf]

No longer prompt to create the home directory.

Because asking newcomers a confusing question on first install is a bad first impression.

[PhysSong]

No longer prompt to create the home directory.

Because asking newcomers a confusing question on first install is a bad first impression.

I agree, but I found some situations where that behavior is undesirable. When the working directory is set by user and moved/deleted/temporarily unable, prompt is still valid.
I suggest checking ConfigManager::inst()->value( "app", "configured" ).toInt() if you want to detect fresh install.

[tresf]

When the working directory is set by user and moved

A warning is valid. A blocking dialog is the wrong way.

/deleted/

I'm not sure how this is helpful to anyone in this case. They can delete the NEW "bread crumbs" if it's undesired. It's of zero consequence or near-zero consequence.

temporarily un[avail]able

This dialog offers no contextual evidence that it's temporarily unavailable and the mkdir will silently fail. I'm not sure the use-case here.

I suggest checking ConfigManager::inst()->value( "app", "configured" ).toInt() if you want to detect fresh install.

That would create unpredictable behavior. It's better to just create the directory in 99.9% of use-cases. We shouldn't be coding to the 1%.

I assume the atypical use-case you're describing is a user-space mountpoint where a drive is mounted in ~ instead of /media/, etc? (I'd call this atypical, and a warning should sufice, but you're this dialog wasn't intended to serve this purpose). Apps should create sane, working directories. Arguably, the .lmmsrc.xml should live directly inside the working directory too, it has no place in ~/.lmmsrc.xml, but I plan to address that as part of DataFile moving from XML to JSON, related: #3981.

[PhysSong]

I use a NTFS partition as the working directory. If LMMS creates the working directory without prompt when the partition is not mounted, it will create a directory which was the path for the partition. That can break several things(bookmarks, other programs' data directories).

I think it's unusual, but I think it'd be better to cover such cases.

[musikBear]

Arguably, the .lmmsrc.xml should live directly inside the working directory too, it has no place in ~/.lmmsrc.xml

Imo in Data, its wrong to force-install things in C: when a user has chosen a different partition as install-point.

[tresf]

Imo in Data

I'm not sure what you're talking about. There's no such thing as data. Perhaps you're referring to %APPDATA%, but that's still explicit.

its wrong to force-install things in C:

Nothing's being force-installed anywhere, please don't make blanket statements.

[tresf]

I use a NTFS partition as the working directory. If LMMS creates the working directory without prompt when the partition is not mounted, it will create a directory which was the path for the partition. That can break several things(bookmarks, other programs' data directories).

Normally user-space doesn't have access to write to mount points unless fstab has mounted them e.g.

I assume the atypical use-case you're describing is a user-space mountpoint where a drive is mounted in ~ instead of /media/, etc?

Unless there's some fuse stuff going on. If you can explain how LMMS has access to write to an unmounted directory, I'd like to know.

I think it's unusual, but I think it'd be better to cover such cases.

How though? That's my problem is that you're exploiting a warning to tell you that a drive isn't mounted and that's never what it was intended for.

If you want a warning because a custom location that you HAVE ALREADY SET is missing, that seems like a different feature. We shouldn't be displaying these dialogs before the software has loaded. It's bad enough we popup that ridiculous settings dialog. The software should just load to the daw first time, every time. Any other end-user experience is 1990s. :)

[tresf]

Tested this for a day, accidentally clicked the wrong folder and created a bunch of breadcrumbs. I don't like the dialog and the experience should be better but I'll have to agree with @PhysSong and leave it out of scope for now.

Reverted and ready for review/merge.

[musikBear]

There's no such thing as data

Now you confuse me:
:..LMMS \data
Thats how my installation looks
Is the folder 'data' not default?
-/-
in respect to the installed files on C i refer to

Those are installed here without me deciding. Perhaps it wrong to call it 'force-installed', but it is not me who made the descission to place files here.
@tresf

[tresf]

@musikBear, that's unrelated to the working directory. Install LMMS wherever you want. :)

[tresf]

:..LMMS \data

The problem @musikBear is that you are making up terms. Yes the skeleton directory is created automatically. That's done as a convenience so that when you save something such as a preset or a sample you don't have to create the directory -- or worse -- you create it in a non-relative path and samples and plugins won't load.

who made the descission to place files here.
@tresf

The dev team did. Otherwise the folder structure is unobvious and relative paths potentially break. This is a stop-gap courtesy until we introduce portable project files.

[zonkmachine]

Shouldn't we probe for ~/lmms or ~/Documents/lmms when starting with no .lmmsrc.xml ? You'd probably want to default to an existing working directory.

[tresf]

Shouldn't we probe for ~/lmms or ~/Documents/lmms when starting with no .lmmsrc.xml ? You'd probably want to default to an existing working directory.

Sure. ~/Documents/lmms doesn't need a probe because that's the new default. #1135 is what inspired this change so we'd need to know what to match on so we don't accidentally select the code repository.

[zonkmachine]

Look forQDir::home().absolutePath() + "/lmms/projects/" ?

[tresf]

Look forQDir::home().absolutePath() + "/lmms/projects/" ?

Done via 052eedc. Ready for testing/review.

[zonkmachine]

Works as intended.

[lukas-w]

@tresf Why did you close this?

[tresf]

@tresf Why did you close this?

Branch cleanup, it was a mistake.