Problems from old config files

[Neal Becker]

Kevin Kofler wrote:

> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>> We clearly need a way of dealing with this. I guess transparent updating
>> is a lot to ask, but at least detecting obsolete config files and
>> warning the user should be a high priority for future KDE releases.
>> Would it be too hard for each config file to include a comment line at
>> the beginning with the version of whatever KDE component created it, and
>> new versions of that component to check the line for compatibility?
> 
> Well, in principle that's what kconf_update is for, but due to various
> limitations:
> 1. Several KDE apps will keep settings in memory and write them out if
> closed, not reloading changes made to the config file in the meantime.
> This breaks if kconf_update runs while the application is running. (This
> is particularly annoying with Plasma config files, kconf_update is
> basically useless for those.)
> 2. Not all known configuration file changes have corresponding
> kconf_update scripts.
> 3. Not all issues caused by old configuration files are known. Sometimes a
> setting which used to be valid isn't anymore for whatever reason and this
> is often very much non-obvious.
> this doesn't always help.
> 
> For 1., either kconf_update or KConfig or both need fixing (I'd fix this
> in KConfig by writing any changes to disk automatically and by setting a
> KDirWatch on the config file to reload on-disk changes automatically, but
> at least Aaron Seigo clearly expressed his dislike for that solution and
> suggests having kconf_update talk to running applications over D-Bus
> instead), for 2., upstream developers need to do a better job of adding
> kconf_update scripts if they change the format of their configuration
> files (but ideally they should just not change it!), 3. is the biggest
> problem (as sometimes even the upstream developer of the application isn't
> aware of the issue nor its cause).
> 
>         Kevin Kofler

If a setting in a conf file is invalid, there should be an error message 
logged.  This is IMO the biggest issue with kde debugging.  Where is a 
decent log file?  There is ~/.xsession-errors, but it's almost useless.  It 
doesn't include 1) name of app logging message 2) time