Hi John,

I've outlined my use case here:

How to give snaps access to /somedir - Ask Ubuntu
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1033344/how-to-give-snaps-access-to-somedir

I want to access my files in /somedir. I don't want snaps to dictate
'/home', '/mnt' or any other special directories. It is fine that these
are the defaults _as long as I can change these directories in a
configuration file_.

vlc /somedir/video.avi

should start the video including any /somedir/video.srt subtitles if
present, just like a standard client does without any additional
interaction from me.

Is there better documentation on what "deskop portals" are than
https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/portal-docs.html?

That links says:

> Requests made via portal interfaces generally involve user
interaction.

That means a dialog box, right? Will it be possible to configure
"portals" somehow so that vlc subsequently can access /somedir
recursively _without_ me, the user, noticing? Because them I'm happy!
:-)

In the https://askubuntu.com/questions/1033344/how-to-give-snaps-access-
to-somedir link above, Zygmunt says:

> There's no way to do that that is general, safe and sound. 
> I know everyone loves to customise their filesystem but that
> has some cost and this is one of them."

I beg to differ. If course it is possible to do that in a way that is
general, safe and sound. Perhaps it goes against the current design of
snapd. Perhaps (e.g. for that reason) this project chooses not to do it
- ever. But to say it isn't possible is simply not true. (Docker can do
it, apache2 and many other apps can do it).

So would it be possible for you guys to outline how it will work once
the Portals integration and/or Zyga's project works?

* Will I be able to add custom directories to the list of already-trusted 
directories?
* Will I be met with additional dialogs when I type vlc /somedir/video.avi? How 
many, given that vlc searches for a tries to open .srt files too?
* Will the same be true if I double-click on file.avi from e.g. xfce's thunar 
file manager?

Being met with additional dialog boxes to confirm that I want to open a
file in /somedir (and then again when accessing the .srt file?), may be
fine for others, but does not constitute the user experience I'm looking
for. Sure, it is better, but not good enough for my use case (a NAS
mounted on /somedir). I'll be annoyed with it every single time I use
it.

If you yourself had 99% of your videos under /somedir, would you
yourself be happy with having to confirm something every time you wanted
to open vlc /somedir/video.avi?

In this thread I thought that finally it was going to be possible. If
you decide not to cater to my use case, that is fine, it is your
project. But then please just say so explicitly, so I'll *know* that
snapd will never be for me so I can choose something else and not wait
for portals or whatever other developments that don't solve my use case
anyway.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1643706

Title:
  snap apps need to be able to browse outside of user $HOME dir. for
  Desktop installs

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