Description of problem: http://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html XDG basedir spec is followed by most modern desktop apps and specifies that the cache directory should be $XDG_CACHE_HOME/icedtea if that variable is set or .cache/icedtea otherwise. Please use this setting by default. Thanks!
Also .config/icedtea should be used in general instead of .icedtea
This is huger task then it looks. I will add it to goals for ITW 1.5 http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/IcedTea-Web#IcedTea-Web_1.5
Actually for ITW itself this is not so evil, But I'm hesitating how to process the with the files and settings in previous directories. Have specification any magical approach?
The spec itself doesn't say but most implementations, just migrate the legacy directories if any to the new locations during launch time. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/tree/gtk/gtkbookmarksmanager.c#n202 If it is a gui, you may optionally prompt the user for confirmation but it is a implementation detail and not necessary. the rationale for the new locations is described in http://ploum.net/post/207-modify-your-application-to-use-xdg-folders.
Thanx for comment, the reasons are pretty clear, and for "solution" I had hoped for some magic ;) I have posted the initial patch: http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/distro-pkg-dev/2013-May/023356.html
Thanks for working on it. From what I understand from that patch, you are hard coding the directories which isn't following the spec correctly. You are supposed to read the environment variables first and use the folders as fallback allowing deployments to customize the folder per their needs if needed. So the logic would be, read $XDG_CACHE_HOME first and if it doesn't exist, use ~/.cache and similarly for other folders.
Yes. I know. This was first and early stage of patch. It is always better to have at least some patch before starting the discussion :). Anyway, thanx for comments!
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/distro-pkg-dev/2013-July/023981.html With some luck final version of patch.
http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/icedtea-web/rev/7c75bf721d7c