Why doesn't Adobe software put all user data in the same "data" folder?

[dublove]

Why doesn't Adobe software put all user data in the same "data" folder?

Nowadays, many software places user data in the "data" folder, so that reinstalling the system or software does not require resetting. Directly call the data in the data.

If it could be like this, that would be great.

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

You might make that a feature request on the request board, here: Adobe InDesign: Feature Requests. We're just a user-to-user forum, here.

The answer, such as it is, is that "Adobe software" consists of somewhere between a half dozen (major) apps and dozens of lesser products, all developed by separate teams and in many cases absorbed from prior makers. No one who's used the tools across the last 15-20 years can help but be awed at how much they have been refined into an interlocking, compatible constellation — it was not that long ago that getting content from PS to AI to ID and back around was a tedious, save-as, open-as process fraught with land mines.

But especially the older apps, running on legacy platforms absorbed from another maker (like, er, InDesign) the integration and coherence isn't 100%, yet. So apps tend to store their configuration and user data where they did in v1.0, long ago and far away (from Adobe's labs).

Make the suggestion more formally, and search the existing suggestions for collateral ideas and add your vote. That's the only way things change except from internal engineering (and, sigh, marketing) imperatives.