Thanks to everyone for taking the time to respond.
Jud Spencer explained:
>> Fair enough. What about having a "MUA Folder Location" preference setting,
>> so users could specify an alternate location? That way there would be no
>> need for Office applications to look in multiple locations.
>
> Because it would be more work.
This is a reasonable answer. It's a feature I would really like to see in a
future version of Entourage, but I understand the need to prioritize.
> There is something to be said on multiple levels, support being foremost,
> about knowing exactly where to look for something.
I don't find this line of reasoning quite as persuasive. One could simply
ask the user to look at the relevant preference setting in order to
determine where Entourage thinks the MUD folder is located.
> It's isn't like we are littering the documents folder. We are putting one
> folder in there. That folder contains a whole bunch of important data.
All true statements. None of which, however, change the fact that if more
developers do this, we're going to be mired in folders that have little or
nothing to do with user-created documents.
David Cortright pointed out:
>> Fair enough. What about having a "MUA Folder Location" preference setting,
>> so users could specify an alternate location? That way there would be no
>> need for Office applications to look in multiple locations.
>
> That's essentially what creating an alias does, no? You can even make it
> invisible if you want to prevent users from seeing it.
I haven't had a chance to try that yet, but it might serve as a decent
workaround. Thanks for the suggestion.
Scott Haneda said:
> That was my question :-) Will Office follow a invisible alias? If this is
> the case, then I can make a simple AppleScript that will move the MUD to
> elsewhere and make the appropriate hidden alias.
Would you be so kind as to contribute said AppleScript once you've had the
chance to put it together? ;)
Allen Watson quipped:
>> Think about this for a moment... If even 25% of OS X applications began
>> storing data in the ~/Documents folder, can you imagine what that folder's
>> contents would look like? Navigating that folder would become a complete
>> nightmare -- it would be about as fun to sift through as your Preferences
>> folder. That is not at all what I envision my "Documents" folder to be.
>
> In that case, you are swimming against the tide...
Tell me about it. I'm at the point where this battle doesn't quite seem
worth fighting. One alternative is to move all of my documents to my own
folder at ~/Data, a path which hopefully won't be appropriated in the future
by Apple or other developers. That way all the apps can feel free to clutter
up the Documents folder, since I won't ever need to look at it again.
Paul Berkowitz suggested:
>> In that case, you are swimming against the tide...
>
> Actually, that's the whole convenience of it. Especially for backing up :
> just back up your whole Documents folder and don't worry where emails and
> other data is.
Maybe it's just me, but I think this convenience is highly overrated. What
if you store your photos in ~/Pictures? Your music in ~/Music? Your movies
in ~/Movies? It's not reasonable to expect all personal data to be stored in
the Documents folder. So, given that you usually can't get away with backing
up just the Documents folder, the "convenience" idea begins to lose its
value proposition. The reality is that the backup procedure is usually going
to require backing up multiple folders.
[Aside: For those about to suggest just backing up the User ("home") folder,
the ~/Library folder contains a ton of stuff that often isn't worth backing
up, including but not limited to many megabytes of cache files.]
> That said, I suppose the idea of a user-designated location makes sense.
> After all, Word has such a system. But Entourage honors aliases - just move
> the MUD to your left foot if you want, but make an alias to it in
> ~/Documents. pretty simple, if you really want to move it. What's the fuss
> about?
As Scott and others have already mentioned, the alias itself is clutter, and
thus the problem hasn't been solved. If the alias can be made invisible, as
comments above seem to indicate, then it appears we may have a decent
workaround.
Once again, thanks to everyone for the input. It's always important to
remember and appreciate that one man's molehill is another man's mountain.
;)
Best,
Justin
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