[launcher] Better integration with OS specific application data directories #1152
Description
Currently we only support limited placeholders in the equinox native launcher
@launcher.dir
Directs Eclipse to compute a location value relative to the directory containing the Eclipse launcher binary. @launcher.dir can be followed by additional path segments. In all cases, the string "@location.dir" is simply replaced with the parent directory of the path pointed to by the Java "eclipse.launcher" System property. For example, setting
osgi.install.area=@launcher.dir/../../../pool
results in a value of
file:/home/bob/eclipse-product/linux/gtk/x86_64/../../../pool
if the "eclipse.launcher" property is set to "/home/bob/eclipse-product/linux/gtk/x86_64/eclipse".
@user.home
Directs Eclipse to compute a location value relative to the user's home directory. @user.home can be followed by additional path segments. In all cases, the string "@user.home" is simply replaced with the value of the Java "user.home" System property. For example, setting
osgi.instance.area=@user.home/myWorkspace
results in a value of
file:/users/bob/myWorkspace
@user.dir
Directs Eclipse to compute a location value relative to the current working directory. @user.dir can be followed by additional path segments. In all cases, the string "@user.dir" is simply replaced with the value of the Java "user.dir" System property. For example, setting
osgi.instance.area=@user.dir/myWorkspace
results in a value of
file:/usr/share/eclipse/myWorkspace
but for example in windows/linux there are user specific places where one should place things look here:
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.environment.specialfolder?view=netframework-4.8
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
to make Eclipse Applications integrate better in these we should add more placeholders that map to OS specific things, e.g. we might want:
@user.datashould map toApplicationDataon windows and$HOMEon Linux (difference to@user.homewhat is feed by javasystemproperty) and replacing the first path segment with a.so for example@user.data/myAppshould resolve to'%APPDATA%\myAppon Windows and$HOME/.myAppon Linux@user.data.sharedshould map onCommonApplicationDataon windows and/srvon linux@user.documentsshould map onPersonalon windows and$HOMEon linux- ... maybe more ideas that are usual places for application data ...
Of course the same needs to be investigated for Mac I have not found yet where these equivalent to linux or if there are other "standards" in MacOS