[IDEA] Saving files to specific directories instead of Desktop

[Lucifiel]

UPDATE!!!

It appears that there is already a similar spec at the following link: the FreeDesktop.org xdg-user-dirs spec (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fxdg_2duser_2ddirs) I wonder how hard it'd be for the developers to integrate this feature as it appears to already being worked on in upstream Gnome.

Many thanks to gnomeuser for alerting me to this project. :D

Summary:
Implement a panel where you can organise your documents, pictures, etc. and other various folder settings. Like determine what is the name of your Documents folder, where are you going to place it, do you want to use separate folders for your Pictures and Documents, etc. And basically, this panel could control your universal folder settings. (Edit: I am completely aware of the "Home folder" but what if Ubuntu's running out of space and someone wants to switch to a folder on another partition?)

Explanation:

A clarification before you read further: Please note that this feature is supposed to be universal within Ubuntu. It should apply to all applications like OpenOffice, Gimp, XMMS, Songbird, etc. and is not a browser-only feature.

When a user saves a file in Ubuntu, it shouldn't be saved to Desktop by default. Instead, the user should be able to set a directory where a certain file extension will be saved to and set it as the Default Saved Files directory. For example: .sib into "Sibelius song compositions"

This is useful in times of say, a certain system crash which reverts the current directory "where the files are saved to", to the previous directory the user had saved their files in a few hours ago.

Perhaps, there could be a Wizard or option within that Panel that allows one to set a few Saved Files directories: one for Sound, one for Pictures and one for Documents.

Below is an idea of what the Wizard could be like:
Good day! This is the Saved Files Wizard. Where do you want to save your files, today?

Checkbox/Button: Turn off the Saved Files Wizard.
I prefer to save my files into various directories and don't need to use the Saved Files Wizard.

Audio directory: \media\hdc2\Saved Files\Music
Sound files like .ogg, .mp3, .wav, etc. will go into this directory.

Movies directory: \media\hdc2\Saved Files\Movies
Movie files like .ogm, .avi, .mov, etc. will go into this directory.

Pictures directory: \media\hdc2\Saved Files\Pictures
Picture files like .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .tiff, etc. will go into this directory.

Documents directory: \media\hdc2\Saved Files\Documents
Document files like .txt, .doc, .wpd, etc. will go into this directory.

View files options:

- View files as List/Icon (User can select this from a drop-down list).


For example:

Janet is new to Ubuntu. She wants to set a default directory where Ubuntu will save its' .doc files to. Using the Saved Files Wizard(sorry crappy name), she decides to set her Documents directory as media\hdc2\Janet Files\Documents

As a result, everytime she saves a .doc with Open Office Word and many other applications, etc. , she does not need to browse through all her directories, in order to direct the application where to save her documents to.

[BungaMan]

I don't like to have the desktop cluttered with files either. What I always do is create directories in my user home dir like Documents, Photos, Downloads, ...

Your proposal of having those files stored on a separate directory not inside your home dir is not a good idea I think. Otherwise you are spreading out your files across the system. You could have shared documents in a separate directory and add a symbolic link in your own home directory to it.

But yes, the general idea of having specific directories for user files is great. And having applications (optionally) default to those directories is even better!

[engla]

What already is available is pretty good.. Set firefox to always ask when you download things, and make sure you have all relevant locations as nautilus bookmarks.. Then you can just select the destination in the dropdown menu.

[23meg]

There's also at least one Firefox extension that does this for Firefox.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/25

[Lucifiel]

I don't like to have the desktop cluttered with files either. What I always do is create directories in my user home dir like Documents, Photos, Downloads, ...

Your proposal of having those files stored on a separate directory not inside your home dir is not a good idea I think. Otherwise you are spreading out your files across the system. You could have shared documents in a separate directory and add a symbolic link in your own home directory to it.

But yes, the general idea of having specific directories for user files is great. And having applications (optionally) default to those directories is even better!

Well, people prefer sometimes to set folders not within /home for various reasons.

For example: they need to work on a set of documents both within Ubuntu and Windows XP. Copying those documents is a workaround but what if the directory is extremely large and consists of up to 10 gb and more?

And also, what if that directory is not the only directory that the user needs to duplicate? How about say, 15 directories which are at least 5 to 10 gb each? Wouldn't the total size be about the size of some hard disk? Does this justify this, then?

Of course, many users have directories which aren't as large but we also have to look at an issue from various ends.

And to 23 meg and engla :

Guys, I'm not talking about Firefox extensions. A feature like this should be available to all use Ubuntu, not restricted to a browser. Furthermore, I did not ever mention that this feature is meant for a browser. It is actually meant for any application that is used within Ubuntu.

Edit: Also, setting bookmarks within Nautilus is not good enough. How about other applications which tend to "overwrite" your "saved files" directory?

[23meg]

It is actually meant for any application that is used within Ubuntu.

With what in the default installation other than Firefox and Evolution do you save downloaded files? This isn't needed as basic functionality, but is perfect as a "nice to have" add-on feature, and with one out of two default applications you can already add it on. And with Evolution it's perhaps not as desirable as with Firefox.

[Lucifiel]

With what in the default installation other than Firefox and Evolution do you save downloaded files? This isn't needed as basic functionality, but is perfect as a "nice to have" add-on feature, and with one out of two default applications you can already add it on. And with Evolution it's perhaps not as desirable as with Firefox.

Huh? What do you mean by "with what in the default installation"? :confused:

I'm not even talking about downloading files, but I'm talking about telling all applications where to save a specific file type. There's a big difference between saving a file using an application and saving a file you downloaded from the internet, ya know?

I'm just curious now: what did I write in my first post that made you and the other poster assume this? Was it unclear in any sort of meaning?

[23meg]

Sorry, I didn't read your post properly; responding to more than 100 threads in two days, and trying to keep up with the ambassadors meeting on IRC while reading yours didn't help perhaps.

It should apply to all applications like OpenOffice, Gimp, XMMS, Songbird, etc. and is not a browser-only feature.

Songbird and XMMS aren't default Ubuntu apps, they aren't even in main. Even with default apps, it's non-trivial and is best suited for upstream, not the Ubuntu developers. Check out the GNOME wiki and bugzilla to find out if anything similar to your proposal has ever come up.

[Lucifiel]

Sorry, I didn't read your post properly; responding to more than 100 threads in two days, and trying to keep up with the ambassadors meeting on IRC while reading yours didn't help perhaps.



Songbird and XMMS aren't default Ubuntu apps, they aren't even in main. Even with default apps, it's non-trivial and is best suited for upstream, not the Ubuntu developers. Check out the GNOME wiki and bugzilla to find out if anything similar to your proposal has ever come up.

Sure, no problem. :) When you're tired, you err. :)

Aha... yeah, that's a good idea. :) I'll bookmark this thread and look it up in GNOME. :p Though, I was hoping to make it a default function within Ubuntu.

And you're right: those are not default Ubuntu apps. :p

[quique1hn]

i think is good idea that you can set this for default, you can choose the directory, home or other, you choose. it`s easy that wey, with pictures, song, etc... i like that

[gnomeuser]

We could probably do this by integrating the FreeDesktop.org xdg-user-dirs spec (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fxdg_2duser_2ddirs). A lot of work on this has gone on in upstream GNOME and it's probably easy to make Firefox and additional applications like it. This way we get predefined directories which are all translated on a per session basis.

[Lucifiel]

We could probably do this by integrating the FreeDesktop.org xdg-user-dirs spec (http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fxdg_2duser_2ddirs). A lot of work on this has gone on in upstream GNOME and it's probably easy to make Firefox and additional applications like it. This way we get predefined directories which are all translated on a per session basis.

Oh, is there really?

*clicks*

Wow, looks like something similar to what I'd envisioned. Although: "Also support non-homedir-relative directories in user-dirs.dir: This isn't recommended (as it can cause problems with e.g. shared homedirs on multiple machines), but can be useful at times. "

I wonder this means.

[BungaMan]

sounds great, so now it's even something for all distro's that follow freedesktop.

[Turgon]

Can't they just make some default folders in /home, like picures, music, downloads, movies and dokuments like in windows and several other linux distros? Almost everyone ends up making these folders anyway.

Firefox would offcourse automaticly download to the downloads folder, rythmbox would be linked to music and f-spot would be linked to pictrures. Everything by default.

[Lucifiel]

Can't they just make some default folders in /home, like picures, music, downloads, movies and dokuments like in windows and several other linux distros? Almost everyone ends up making these folders anyway.

Firefox would offcourse automaticly download to the downloads folder, rythmbox would be linked to music and f-spot would be linked to pictrures. Everything by default.

Well, as I said before, what if /home runs out of space? Surely you've heard of users unable to boot into Ubuntu, should Ubuntu run completely out of space?

To be honest, when I first made this thread, I was thinking of user enhancements but as I read more about Ubuntu, I became convinced Ubuntu needs to offer more choices so that should all hell break loose, the users can kick Hell and Satan back to where the sun don't shine and not fret over simple issues.

In my honest opinion, keeping everything under /home is a good idea but it also has its' own disadvantages. People running out of disk space and not able to boot into Ubuntu is one issue. Another is when Ubuntu dies, and the user is unable to retrieve the data. Yeah, having /home as a separate directory is good but what if the user also can't access that too?

[gnomeuser]

Can't they just make some default folders in /home, like picures, music, downloads, movies and dokuments like in windows and several other linux distros? Almost everyone ends up making these folders anyway.

Firefox would offcourse automaticly download to the downloads folder, rythmbox would be linked to music and f-spot would be linked to pictrures. Everything by default.

You ignore the obvious translation issues, we want the directories to appear in the homedir in the language the user selected, the xdg-user-dirs spec addresses this. There's also a shim available to automatically add the xdg dirs to your gtk bookmarks (I don't know about KDE but nothing technical prevents this from working for them).

Then you need to patch your applications to use the xdg-user-dirs automatically but this is being done upstream (I know totem already has support and more apps are joining up).

[Lucifiel]

First post updated with link to xdg-user-dirs spec. :)