Karabiner-elements: Request: Support ~/.config/ ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME)

[lgarron]

A home folder gets very crowded if every program creates its own config files/folders there.
A standard alternative that is gaining traction is to place config files under ~/.config instead.
(At least, if you're not an OSX-only app that uses ~/Library/Application Support.)

For example, the fish shell uses ~/.config/fish/ and git looks for its config files under ~/.config/git/ out of the box.

It would be nice if we could place config files under ~/.config/karabiner/ instead of ~/.karabiner.d/. Karabiner-Elements could either do this by changing its default config folder, or by searching there if a config is not found at ~/.karabiner.d/.

[lgarron]

Looking at this a bit more, this standard comes from a project called XDG.

$XDG_DATA_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user specific data files should be stored. If $XDG_DATA_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.local/share should be used.

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME defines the base directory relative to which user specific configuration files should be stored. If $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is either not set or empty, a default equal to $HOME/.config should be used.

The two programs I mentioned (fish and git) both support $XDG_CONFIG_HOME.

https://standards.freedesktop.org/basedir-spec/basedir-spec-latest.html

[lgarron]

Looking at the git implementation, a simple heuristic in constants.cpp should do (assuming you're willing to support it:

if (!once) {
  once = true;
  if (auto x = std::getenv("XDG_CONFIG_HOME")) {
    directory = x;
    directory += "/karabiner";
  } else if (auto p = std::getenv("HOME")) {
    directory = p;
    directory += "/.config/karabiner";
  }
}

However, that doesn't cover src/apps/PreferencesWindow/PreferencesWindow/Base.lproj/MainMenu.xib or src/apps/PreferencesWindow/PreferencesWindow/PreferencesWindowController.m

[talha131]

Great idea. Besides git and fish, neovim also uses XDG convention.

[sunapi386]

+1

[sunapi386]

I opened PR https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/pull/114 – this should do it.

[Michaelizm]

+1

[cseelus]

This seems to be the current standard for modern unixoid software, to unclutter the home directory. More info here and here.

[alanshutko]

Is there any chance that Karabiner-Elements will be ported to other Unices? I thought it was highly Mac specific.

[cseelus]

@alanshutko this was not my suggestion (I think there is no reason to port it to other Unices), but macOS is a unixoid OS after all and many similar tools use the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME nowadays.

[sunapi386]

@lgarron the title should be corrected, "Request: Support ~/.config/ ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME)" should be changed to "Request: Support $XDG_CONFIG_HOME". Because $XDG_CONFIG_HOME should default to $HOME/.config.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XDG_Base_Directory_support

[nfarrar]

Quite some time ago I submit a similar request to hammerspoon. Their solution is here: https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/pull/582 (the default path is set in the in the app plist in ~/Library, allowing users to change the value).

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[lgarron]

The default path has changed, so this bug should be considered fixed. :-D

Others may like to be able to configure the path using $XDG_CONFIG_HOME from default shell, but that's a follow-up feature as far as my request was concerned.

[cseelus]

Very nice, bc of this feature one is able to cleanly backup the Karabiner-Elements config with his/her other Dotfiles.
Thanks for the great work!