[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #40444] On Windows, config & history files etc. should go to %APPDATA%

[Mike Miller]

Follow-up Comment #11, bug #40444 (project octave):

Thanks for the info and the references. Based on that and on the Windows
article, I still think that %LOCALAPPDATA% is a better first target for where
to read octaverc from.

If a user saves their startup path to octaverc (e.g. with 'savepath'), that
might include local directories and drives that are only present on one
system. That should only happen in a local configuration file, not a roaming
file.

I am also trying to reconcile this with best practices. One example is the Qt
QStandardPaths class (https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qstandardpaths.html), which maps
various system conventions to a standard enumerated type. According to
QStandardPaths

* AppDataLocation == %APPDATA%/AppName
* AppConfigLocation == %LOCALAPPDATA%/AppName

On a GNU system

* AppDataLocation == ~/.local/share/AppName
* AppConfigLocation == ~/.config/AppName

In this context, "app data" to me means things like icons, themes, fonts,
compiled search databases, email folders, various kinds of internal storage or
generated files. OTOH "app config" means configuration files that users should
be able to edit and customize to configure the application for their local
environment.

If Octave supports reading octaverc from %APPDATA% only, how would you add a
startup configuration that only applies to one machine?

I am leaving open the possibility that Octave could read octaverc from both
locations eventually, but for now I think %LOCALAPPDATA% is a good first
target to aim for. Can you test my patch on bug #36477?

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