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Windows System

AppDirs Instance Methods

In a Windows machine, following AppDirs methods point at the directories below:

val appDirs: AppDirs = AppDirsFactory.getInstance()
val APP_NAME = "myApp"
val APP_VERSION = "0.1.0"
val APP_AUTHOR = "myName" // or the organization name

val userLocalDataDir: Path = appDirs.getUserDataDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR)
// C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\myName\myApp\0.1.0

val userRoamingDataDir: Path = appDirs.getUserDataDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR, roaming = true)
// C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\myName\myApp\0.1.0

val userLocalConfigDir: Path = appDirs.getUserConfigDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR)
// C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\myName\myApp\0.1.0

val userRoamingConfigDir: Path = appDirs.getUserConfigDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR, roaming = true)
// C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\myName\myApp\0.1.0

val userCacheDir: Path = appDirs.getUserCacheDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR)
// C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\myName\myApp\Cache\0.1.0

val userDownloadsDir: Path = appDirs.getUserDownloadsDir()
// C:\Users\<username>\Downloads

val userDesktopDir: Path = appDirs.getUserDesktopDir()
// C:\Users\<username>\Desktop

val userDocumentsDir: Path = appDirs.getUserDocumentsDir()
// C:\Users\<username>\My Documents
val userMusicDir: Path = appDirs.getUserMusicDir()
// C:\Users\<username>\My Music

val userPicturesDir: Path = appDirs.getUserPicturesDir()
// C:\Users\<username>\My Pictures

val userVideosDir: Path = appDirs.getUserVideosDir()
// C:\Users\<username>\My Videos

val userLogDir: Path = appDirs.getUserLogDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR)
// C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\myName\myApp\Logs\0.1.0

val siteDataDir: Path = appDirs.getSiteDataDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR)
// C:\ProgramData\myName\myApp\0.1.0

val siteConfigDir: Path = appdirs.getSiteConfigDir(APP_NAME, APP_VERSION, APP_AUTHOR)
// C:\ProgramData\myName\myApp\0.1.0

Notes

  • getUserDataDir and getUserConfigDir without roaming or with roaming is false point at the same directory. (See userLocalDataDir and userLocalConfigDir above.)
  • getUserDataDir and getUserConfigDir with roaming is true point at the same directory. (See userRoamingDataDir and userRoamingConfigDir above.)
  • getSiteDataDir and getSiteConfigDir (with or without local argument) point at the same directory. (See siteDataDir and siteConfigDir above.)
  • local argument on getSiteDataDir and getSiteConfigDir has no effect on Windows machines.
  • Windows is the only system that utilizes roaming argument on getUserDataDir and getUserConfigDir methods.
  • local argument on getSiteDataDir and getSiteConfigDir has no effect in Windows system.
  • Windows is the only system that utilizes appAuthor on every method1.
  • Windows system is the only system that uses backward slashes (\) as the directory separator.

What is Roaming?

Since Windows NT 3.1, Windows system uses a concept called roaming, which moves or copies the content of the related application directory over the network to different machines.

The methods below support one extra argument called roaming:

  • getUserDataDir
  • getUserConfigDir

With roaming is true, the application directory points at the roaming application directory.

However, since this option is not widely used in Windows, it is not activated by default. To activate this feature, see this documentation of Microsoft.

This feature is especially useful for business machines that are connected to the same network.

  1. appAuthor argument, in all AppDirs instance methods' signatures, it is marked as String? and defaults to null and since it is null by default, you do not have to pass appAuthor. In this case, appAuthor will not be rendered in the end result. ↩

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