environment variable INKSCAPE_PORTABLE_PROFILE_DIR should be documented in man page

[bcrowell]

As usual for a unix man page, Inkscape's has an ENVIRONMENT section that lists the environment variables it uses. The environment variable INKSCAPE_PORTABLE_PROFILE_DIR should be documented there. It doesn't appear to be documented in Inkscape 0.47.

Cf. https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/382394

I think this environment variable was originally added for a particular pupose (a "portable" version of Inkscape), but it's of interest to any user who is using Inkscape from the command line. For instance, if one uses inkscape to render SVG to PDF from a script, there is no other good way to control the rendering options.

[Sam Mingolelli (k-launchpad-jake8us-org)]

We recently ran into this exact issue over on the Unix & Linux Stackoverflow site. It would've saved us a lot of time if this had been clearly documented. One of our senior users to the site finally brought this option to our attention. But only after he had actually offered a patch, giving us the option to override the location of the preferences.xml file, did he later find a thread about the portableapps maintainer wanting this option, did we discover that it even existed.

References
- https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/382394
- http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/98503/clean-way-to-temporarily-replace-a-config-file

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Not sure documenting INKSCAPE_PORTABLE_PROFILE_DIR environment variable is a good idea, since it was requested by the Portable Apps maintainer in order to choose a different Inkscape user preferences directory on Windows. I'd tend to consider it as internal stuff...

An alternative would be to:
* Add the env, renamed to INKSCAPE_PROFILE_DIR, to the man page (but we need to warn the portable apps maintainer of the change).
* Add a new INKSCAPE_PROFILE_DIR in Inkscape and document it in the man page (and keep the portable apps specific env in the code, but not documented in the man).

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

I'm going to add a new INKSCAPE_PROFILE_DIR in Inkscape and document it in the man page, and keep INKSCAPE_PORTABLE_PROFILE_DIR in the code (not documented in the man).

Note that INKSCAPE_PORTABLE_PROFILE_DIR also disables changes to the Windows registry, and thus can't be replaced with the new generic user profile directory env.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

New env committed revision 13346.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Man page updated in inkscape-docs, revision 504.

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

POD files updated in the trunk, revision 13347.

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

If anybody here relies on INKSCAPE_PORTABLE_PROFILE_DIR, please comment on https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/issues/114, otherwise it will likely be removed.

[Patrick Storz (ede123)]

(INKSCAPE_PROFILE_DIR will be kept if there was any doubt)