Richard Kimberly Heck said on Fri, 9 Jan 2026 11:29:09 -0500 >Yes, that is what I had in mind, but I think Steve may still have a >point. On Windows and OSX, I think we have to do various things to >copy over the user directory when we install new versions. I've also >seen, on my own system, ~/.lyx2.5, say, used as user directory for one >version and ~/.lyx2.4 for another. One might worry that files in one >of these could easily be lost on upgrade. Or when someone suggests >moving the user directory and starting afresh to deal with some >problem. > >That isn't necessarily a reason not to implement $LyXDir in this way, >but it might be a reason not to use it! > >My own preference has always been simply to put the file of macros in >some central location (e.g., ~/Documents/) and use the full path to >include it.
I do things a little differently. It's controversial and upsets Unix purists because it violates the FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard). I don't necessarily recommend this, I'm just telling you how I do it. I have a tree called /d where d stands for "data". Anything I create, and anything I can't replace or buy again, gets placed somewhere in the /d directory. The /d tree gets backed up in its entirety, containing only valuable, irreplaceable files, without cruft like 100,000 cache files, gigantic browser files including those awful Firefox identity files, and other riff raff that either aren't necessary or you can easily reconfigure. Also, when switching to a brand new computer, doing a complete copy of your home directory sometimes conflicts with your new hardware, and takes away your opportunity to do spring cleaning so to get rid of config files from 20 years ago. For config files that took a lot of work and aren't obvious, I can always copy them to a temporary directory before backing up, as part of the backup script. I do that on every backup. My way isn't for everyone. It *certainly* isn't for a computer used by multiple people (unless you have /d/sylvia and /d/slitt or something like that), but for a single user personal PC it offers some advantages. SteveT Steve Litt http://444domains.com -- lyx-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lyx.org/mailman/listinfo/lyx-users
