Getting Program to Use Correct APPDATA User Directory

[Eric_Heumann]

Before I even started using the NetBeans IDE or experimenting with the platform, I was rather taken aback by the collection of .nbi, .netbeans, and .netbeans-registration folders in my home user directory. First off, it's the incorrect location to put user-specific application data, and second off, adding a period before the name doesn't hide it on Windows; it just makes the situation even uglier. I was further disappointed when I discovered that all applications built off the NetBeans Platform follow suit and also use the user home directory as the location to put their user-specific application data. As a developer, I guess I can put up with the IDE behaving this way (I can edit the IDE's config file and force it to put that data in a more appropriate location), but... I certainly don't expect my clients to do this with the applications I distribute.

The situation may not have been as bad with Windows XP users, since the user home was rarely visited. However, with Windows Vista and 7, the user home directory is visited extensively, and a collection of .xxx folders at the top a) looks bad, b) pushes the frequently used Music, Documents, etc folders further down the screen, and c) is generally bad practice since Microsoft provides the AppData folder for this purpose.

Has there been any discussion about this previously? I've searched multiple sources and only found a scattered thread of emails discussing the issue from several years ago.

My primary question: how can I change this behavior in the applications I develop and distribute?

After creating a distributable, I've attempted altering the etc/appname.conf file's netbeans_default_userdir entry from the default, ${HOME}/.${APPNAME}/dev, to ${APPDATA}/.${APPNAME}/dev, but the program doesn't seem to understand that environment variable.

I'd prefer not to use ${HOME}/AppData/Roaming/${APPNAME}/dev, since that is specific to Vista (XP would use Application Data instead of AppData/Roaming, and that is not correct at all on Linux systems).

Is there a more direct way of resolving this issue?

[dthompson]

The options in the conf file are brought in at build time, so changing these values at build time has been the best way for me to add these options. I have seen a couple of resolutions, see http://old.nabble.com/netbeans_default_options-td21863524.html#a25011961 for a fairly clean solution.

Doug.