I just logged into a test account, which isn’t signed into iCloud. The Lettera folder is created in ~/Documents.
I don’t understand why Matteo keeps saying that they have no choice but to use iCloud Drive, because it’s obviously not true here, and I’ve never seen an app that stores files that requires that they be stored on iCloud Drive. There is no sandboxing that prevents apps from storing files anywhere in the user space. If it’s data stored in a database with CloudKit, such as for Bear, that’s different.
This may not be such an edge case. I think it’s likely that a lot of people don’t use iCloud Drive, but use Dropbox or Google Drive instead. And for them, putting the folder in iCloud Drive is problematic.
They may not actively be using iCloud storage but once they have logged-in with their iCloud account the app would have access to it I think unless you have to enable iCloud Files (don’t remember).
I agree that Dropbox and Google could easily be one of those locations where folks store their files,100%. This is why this process of opening, dragging, and pointing to folders has to be intuitive, I shouldn’t have to check or double check.
I think Matteo mentioned that it was their default case to start with but am believing/hoping they will revisit some of their startup assumptions. I think they should ask the user for the location if not already known which means the first time someone fires up the app.. I do think there may be a number of app settings like this to provide the default folder. I want to open up several root folders that may contain child folders and I’d like to see them all in the sidebar with some simple way for me to see where they are physically (dropbox, Mac, google, iCloud, etc.. And that last part is only needed if I can’t trust what the app may have done with them. I do think I’d want to hover over the folder and have it remind me if I forgot as sometimes life gets complicated and you forget.
It’s clear now that the handling of the default folder (iCloud today) will be addressed in the coming days ahead whether prior to the production release or not based on what I’ve read it will be addressed.
Also, I now have a better understanding of how the windows and sidebar is working and I’m just fine with it. Merging all those folders into the single sidebar is not trivial and quite honestly may simply create unnecessary complexities for everyone.
I am also able to use the MacOS feature for window handling by using the menu “window->merge all windows” which brings everything into a single window with multiple tabs and the sidebar is context responsive meaning it will reflect the parent folder where the file lives in the file system, perfect for me.