Set a starting/default folder in My Hub

[naxels]

Thank you for creating Livebook, it's been a really great pleasure so far learning Elixir with it :)

When I get a new laptop, one of the first things I do is create a Projects folder
and in this case, I've created a subfolder called Livebook.

What would be really handy is if you can set a setting on the My Hub page (since it's local)
where you can set a starting/default folder or something like that.

Now for every save/open I have to navigate to Projects/Livebook
While a setting like above would save me the steps every time :)

I'm using the macOS Desktop app

Thank you for consideration and keep up the good work!

[josevalim]

How are you using Livebook? Via the CLI or desktop app? Maybe what we should do is, in the file system component, have a button called “make default folder” under the + button, to make it accessible.

[josevalim]

In settings wins over LIVEBOOK_HOME for sure. My suggestion is only to have it in the component, vs settings/hub, because I assume it is the simplest place to find it (especially if multiple/hub file systems become more prominent in the future, it is all in the same component and not in different hub pages).

[jonatanklosko]

@josevalim ah, actually we can make them orthogonal. I would kill the notion of "default file system" and instead have "default directory" which can be in any file system. Then LIVEBOOK_HOME configures the default path of the local file system, and "default directory" can be set in the file navigator. wdyt?

[naxels]

@josevalim , I'm using the desktop app on macOS

[naxels]

Another idea I have is:

• in the save/open window have a recent folder(s) shortcut (i do notice recent notebooks)
  • or call it 'quick nav' something like that

This might also help for example when navigating an S3 bucket

[josevalim]

@jonatanklosko in terms of features, we definitely need:

1. setting the default file system
2. setting the default directory

Bundling them together is a good idea to me because:

1. It is one button that does both (it reduces UI surface)
2. It is hopefully more discoverable
3. It will allow us to move file systems inside Hubs, if we want to do so later

And LIVEBOOK_HOME it is only about the default path for the default file system. So 👍.

[jonatanklosko]

@naxels you can set LIVEBOOK_HOME env variable to point to your Livebook directory. If you're using the desktop app then a way to do it is create ~/.livebookdesktop.sh and have export LIVEBOOK_HOME="..." there.

[naxels]

Thank you for the suggestion, I do however think that for the majority of users this will defeat the convenience purpose of downloading the app & running it, hopefully we can find another way :)