XDG Base Directory Specification

[stefanpenner]

WIP, will flesh this out later:

What?

We should consider abiding by the XDG Base Directory Specification

This makes where notion lives on disk configurable, specifically it would abide by the following ENV variables:

• $XDG_DATA_HOME fallback: $HOME/.local/share

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME fallback: $HOME/.config

• $XDG_DATA_DIRS fallback: /usr/local/share/:/usr/share/

• $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS fallback: /etc/xdg

• $XDG_CACHE_HOME fallback: $HOME/.cache

• $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR fallback see [spec]((https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html)

• more details for each are specified here*

Why?

• cluttering up $HOME becomes unwieldy
• simplifies testing (we can sub-shell and simply set up the appropriate $XDG vars (no chroot, containers etc)
• easier to reset config / clear caches
• power users can configure to there hearts content, but no cost those who wish to rely on the fallbacks

How

Technically, likely via the XDG crate

Others Using XDG

Mostly just a list of whats in my $XDG_CONFIG_HOME, I suspect there are more.

• nvim: XDG base directory specification support neovim/neovim#3470
• asciinema
• alacritty
• git
• htop
• yarn
• fish
• fisherman

Unresolved

Where do we put stuff in windows?

Maybe something like:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\notion-cli\notion\{dirs...}

Other Discussion

• rust XDG RFC: Let Cargo put data into platform-specific directories rust-lang/rfcs#1615

[soc]

@stefanpenner Regarding Windows (and macOS) you could have a look at https://crates.io/crates/directories. It's similar to the xdg crate but supports the right directories on Linux, Windows and macOS. (Disclaimer: I wrote it.)