"Christian Klemke" <Christian.Klemke@t-online.de> writes:
> I've been following this discussion for some time now and I think that you
> are losing the focus. I mean, who is your target audience ? How many people
> may be out there who have the technical knowledge to put the correct
> settings in the database config files but do not know how to open and modify
> them just because they do not pop up using simple double clicks ?
Fair point ;-)
> 1. Use the ".ini" extension. Ini files contain plain text, are associated
> with notepad.exe by default and will show up as "Configuration Settings" in
> the explorer. It doesn't matter if they do not fully comply with the default
> ini file format in case of Postgres, as long as they are not accessed by the
> corresponding special API functions.
Well, this seems to me to have the same objection raised by Bruce for
".txt", which is that it might cause people to make mistaken assumptions
about the valid format of the file. I don't think it's worse than .txt
but I'm not sure it's better either.
> 2. Use a Postgres specific extension like ".pgconfig" and let the installer
> create a proper file type association. I suppose most Windows users will use
> the installer (and those who don't will know how to handle the files
> manually). Alternatively/Additionally, the installer might also set up a
> link like "Modify configuration file" in the program group associated with a
> "notepad <path><file>" command. The Apache HTTP server installer does
> something similar for its "httpd.conf" file, IIRC. This would also "bypass"
> the hidden directory issue.
The link idea doesn't work because the installer doesn't necessarily
know where these files will be --- they are per client user, not per
installation.
regards, tom lane