most xfce modules put their config files under .config/xfce4/ while session keeps them in .config/xfce4-session. It would be more consistent for these to go in .config/xfce4/session Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
We discussed this several times, and it's really a matter of taste (or a matter of how you read the XDG basedir spec). If you ask me applications should put their stuff into directories $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/<appname>/, i.e. $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/Thunar/, $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/Terminal/, etc. and so $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/xfce4-session/ is correct and makes sense in that light. If you have toolkit wide or desktop wide settings, than these settings should end up in $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/<toolkit>/ and $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/<desktop>/. Soe $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/xfce4/ is for desktop wide configuration, but the stuff in $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/xfce4-session/ doesn't affect any other Xfce4 application, but is private to xfce4-session.
The issue at hand here is that xfce (as a whole) writes configuration information in a bunch of places now: ~/.config/xfce4/ ~/.config/xfce4-session/ ~/.cache/sessions/ That is, if someone wants to move their xfce config somewhere else, and *exactly* duplicate their desktop, they need to copy all three of those folders. There's no need for a separate xfce4-session toplevel, and it increases confusion. Can you point out the specific wording in the spec that leads you to believe it suggests/requires that applications need to store their files in an <appname> folder *directly* off the toplevel XDG directory? I can't seem to find anything like that. The only thing remotely like that is where it says files should be installed to "$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/subdir/filename", but you can interpret that pretty much any way you want - 'subdir' could in fact be multiple subdirs, and need not have to be the application name, or in fact anything related to the application. Now, I agree that Terminal, Thunar, xfmedia, etc., should all have their own directories outside of xfce4/, but if you consider the desktop environment as a coherent unit -- which it is, despite its modularity -- then a single toplevel directory makes sense. xfce4-session is certainly an integral part of the DE. On a side note, by your reasoning, you're "violating" the spec by using ~/.cache/sessions/.
The spec says "subdir" now. And this is really a minor issue compared to more important issues in 4.4. Maybe for 4.6. That's just personal opinion anyway, just like someone would say that a file manager is an integral part and a session manager is not.
Isn't this one obsolete now that xfce4-session uses xfconf?
Part of it is. xfce4-session still uses ~/.cache/sessions/, but I'm not sure we should bother changing it at this point.
(In reply to comment #5) > Part of it is. xfce4-session still uses ~/.cache/sessions/, but I'm not sure > we should bother changing it at this point. No, probably not.