[Adium-devl] Moving chat transcripts to ~/Documents/Adium

[Peter Hosey]

On Apr 28, 2009, at 08:40:18, Andreas Monitzer wrote:
> I also hate it when applications mess around with my documents.  
> That's what Library/Application Support is there for.

Application Support is there for application support files. Are chat  
transcripts support files, or are they user documents?

I contend they are the latter, and should go into a subfolder of ~/ 
Documents for that reason.

Relevant passages from “File System Overview”[1]:

 From “File-System Domains”:
> Documents	Contains the user’s personal documents.

> Library	Contains application settings, preferences, and other system  
> resources that are specific to the user. Should not contain user data.

 From “The Library Directory”:
> Important: You should not store user data files in the Library  
> directory or any of its subdirectories. If your application stores  
> the user’s data automatically—that is, without prompting the user  
> for a location—you should choose a more appropriate location  
> (usually the Documents directory) inside the user’s home directory.

 From “The Library Directory”:
> Application Support	Contains application-specific data and support  
> files such as third-party plug-ins, helper applications, templates,  
> and extra resources that are used by the application but not  
> required for it to operate. This directory should never contain any  
> kind of user data.

The user's transcripts are user data. iChat reached the same  
conclusion. Mail went with ~/Library/Mail, but I think there's a  
strong case above that they should have gone with ~/Documents/Mail.

And if you need another reason:

	http://trac.adiumx.com/ticket/8320

[1]: http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPFileSystem/