[vlc-devel] .hosts is a preference

[Rob]

you certainly could argue that other files in the http source directory  
are also preferences (and I think it would be a good thing if there was an  
option to store them outside the actual application bundle).

Having said that, I think there is a quantitive difference between the  
.hosts and other files

just making up numbers, I'd guess something like:

100 people enabling the http interface (this is stored in preferences)
70 people want to access the interface from something other than localhost  
(this is lost on every upgrade)
1 person has custom scripts (lost on every upgrade)


my thinking is that when you upgrade VLC, then ideally you shouldn't have  
to reconfigure it to work again.

I'd be delighted if there was a solution for all these people - but I  
think the 70 people needing to update the .hosts would be the place to  
start.

what is the objection to a way for users to keep these customizations  
outside the app bundle (in a similar way to the preference file)?

how about a mechanism which looked in /<pref directory>/share/http/ for  
the .hosts (and other files), anything in the preference directory  
overrides the defaults, but otherwise the existing files within the app  
bundle get used?

Rob

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:05:57 +0100, Rémi Denis-Courmont <remi at remlab.net>  
wrote:

>
> On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:27:58 +0100, Rob <rob at hobbyistsoftware.com> wrote:
>
>> The .hosts file is where the user specifies what computers can talk to
>
> the
>
>> http interface which seems a lot like a preference.
>
>
>
> It is part of the HTTP interface data file just like the rest. You could
>
> make the exact same argument with any file in the HTTP source directory
>
> that the user would modify. In fact, I assume some of the HTTP "remotes"
>
> add their own files to the source directory, instead of using the  
> built-in
>
> 'request.xml'.
>
>
>
>> Is there any chance that these files could be moved to the preference
>
>> directories and referenced by symlink?
>
>
>
> That's really up to the packagers. I think Debian and Ubuntu already does
>
> exactly that with their VLC package.
>
>