108202 - better filename than "localstore.rdf"

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Profile: BackEnd, enhancement)

Description

[Henrik Gemal]

the filename "localstore.rdf" is not very good. Why not rename it to:
"Stored Window Settings.rdf"

Comment 1

[timeless]

22 characters long for something we don't actually expect end users to edit.

it would break backwards compatibility w/ many mozilla installs and 3 netscape
releases (6.0, 6.1, 6.2) [among other products].

i should be able to come up w/ more reasons if these and whatever others say
aren't sufficient to wontfix this.

I don't think your reason is sufficient to rename it and cause the problems
stemming from even just the compatibility issue.

Comment 2

[Daniel Veditz [:dveditz]]

Backwards compatibility is easy... if "New name" doesn't exist and
localstore.rdf does then copy it. Adds a smidgen more code to the profile
startup, which rarely gets exercised (we already deal with the localstore being
gone since we can rebuild it). If you share a profile between new and old
versions then your settings bifurcate from that point, no big deal

I'm sympathetic toward the drive to clean up some of the clutter in the prefs
dir, while also recognizing that nothing in there is intended for non-savvy
end-users in the first place. I'm agnostic on this proposal (and intertia
suggests we stick with the existing name) but I had to disagree with the
compatibility argument.

Comment 3

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

how about "delete me if this profile crash mozilla.rdf" ? :-)

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Right, this isn't so users can edit it (though if they really really want to, 
this will certainly help); it's so users know that if things go irretrievably 
wrong with their Mozilla windows, then deleting the file might fix the problem. 
On Mac we could indicate deletability somehow using the icon, but for other 
platforms the name is all we've got to communicate with.

I prefer `Saved Window Settings' -- I think that's clearer than `Stored' at 
saying that the file was saved as a result of user actions. (And since Mozilla 
is the only program which uses this file, we don't need to tell the rest of the 
world that it's .rdf, either.)

Comment 5

[Robert John Churchill]

localstore.rdf is about more than just "Saved Window Settings".  Also, don't
take off the ".rdf" file extension.

Comment 6

[Eoghan Murray]

From an end user:  I edited this file to try to get rid of old mispellings that 
were turning up in the autocomplete for the location bar.  I backed it up, 
edited it, then mozilla wouldn't work.  So I replaced the backup, but... 
mozilla still wouldn't work (I'm using windows and edited it with wordpad or 
some other MS txteditor ****.).  Point is, I don't think end user (me) should 
be editing this.  
We're talking about a design issue here I think.  The user shouldn't have to 
edit this file as Mozilla should be smart enough not to put misspellings in 
here, i.e. urls that return 404not found.
I know this file contains more settings than the autocomplete urls, but the 
user need never know about it if it is well behaved!

Or: new feature:

lets say I have
    <RDF:li>www.google.com</RDF:li>
    <RDF:li>www.google.coim</RDF:li>

in this file, why not store an extra variable indicating the amount of times 
that the website has been accessed/typed in the location bar?

As it is now, google.coim gets selected in autocomplete, for alphabetical 
reasons I presume, whereas with a frequency counter, the more popular 
google.com would get selected every time.

Does anyone know what I'm on about?
Am I posting this in the right place?