Functions of xdg-user-dirs

Question

What are the functions and capabilities of xdg-user-dirs? In particular, I'm interested to have the folders it creates on a different partition instead of the whole Home.

Solution

From http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/xdg-user-dirs:

Settings

Sysadmins can configure things by editing /etc/xdg/user-dirs.conf. At the moment there are only two settings, you can disable the whole thing, and you can specify the charset encoding used for filenames. They can also set or change the default directories and their initial values in /etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults.

$(XDG_CONFIG_HOME)/user-dirs.dirs specifies the current set of directories for the user. This file is in a shell format, so its easy to access from a shell script. This file can also be modified by users (manually or via applications) to change the directories used. Note: To disable a directory, point it to the homedir. If you delete it it will be recreated on the next login.

Comments

[Oxwivi]

Where is this config file located on Ubuntu?

[belacqua]

@oxwivi Try $HOME/.config/user-dirs.dirs .

[Oxwivi]

@jgbelacqua, @DoR, if I point the directory to a nonexistent folder, will it create it automatically?