Preferences folder/files on mobile

[J. Landman Gay]

On 7/24/11 1:35 PM, Slava Paperno wrote:
> Does the special folder "preferences" point to some location on mobile
> devices?

No. The release notes on each mobile OS have a list of available folders 
you can access.

>
> If not, where is one supposed to place a preferences file for an application
> on a mobile?

Generally specialFolderPath("documents"), for a couple of reasons. Not 
only is it one of the folders backed up by iTunes on iOS (all app data 
is backed up on Android) but also since that folder exists and is 
writable on both mobile platforms, you don't have to branch your code.

>
> Is the Windows tradition of naming the preferences file with the "ini"
> extension upheld on mobiles?

As long as you store your file in one of the approved, writable folders, 
it doesn't matter what you name it. An "ini" file won't have any 
particular meaning on mobile however. Since it's difficult to see what 
other apps use for their file names because of the sandboxing, I don't 
know if Windows naming conventions are common. It wouldn't matter.

>
> A related question: does special folder "home" have any meaning on a mobile?
> The concept of the "current user" does not exist on a mobile device, does
> it?

iOS has specialFolderPath("home") though I don't know if it is writable. 
Android doesn't have a "home" folder; at present it has only three 
special folder locations and only two are writable.

I don't think mobile devices can have more than one user account (can 
they?) so there wouldn't be a specific "current user". The device itself 
would be the current user, I suppose.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com