Clarify that path for extracting OpenRefine should be 'shallow'

[bencomp]

In the workshop today, several people got an error about "Pathname too long" when they extracted the ZIP file that had OpenRefine. We should make clear that the location where they extract the ZIP file should not be 'deep' in the file system, i.e. not G:\Documents\Projects\something something\Year 2\Data Carpentry workshop\Day 1, to prevent this error.

I found that suggesting to extract to the desktop worked, even though it's not great as a permanent location.

[CosiMichele]

Hello, I found this issue through the carpentries' help wanted page (doing my checkout), so I hope it is okay to post/comment.

Firstly, I'd suggest that for any workshop all paths remain short and/or close to Home. I've noticed that this helps the students in two ways: 1. it makes it easier for them to return to the same folder (after a break for example, or if the workshop is multiple days long - it isn't uncommon to "get lost" in your own system of directories), 2. it prevents these sort of issues.

That said, this isn't exactly an OpenRefine issue, but something related to Windows and Windows Registry. As it was pointed out in https://github.com/OpenRefine/OpenRefine/issues/2217, the issue is related to the maximum amount of characters that Windows recognizes when typing in paths. Enabling LongPathsEnabled in the Windows Registry will allow much longer paths to be used.

I hope this helps with your issue and future workshops!

[bencomp]

Hi @CosiMichele, thanks for commenting! Your feedback is very welcome! (You may know this, but remember that for checkout, you need to send an email referring to your comment to the supplied email address.)

I agree that paths should be easy to find and that may mean keeping them short and close to a home directory. But personal preferences (and research data management courses instructing to keep files organised) may lead learners to put both the workshop data and OpenRefine in one (deep) directory. So I'm not sure about suggesting paths for data in general. I feel that we can add a note to the setup instructions about extracting OpenRefine to a shallow directory, as well as to the instructor notes to anticipate related error messages. Would that work for you too?

I don't think we should ask learners to change Windows Registry settings, as they may not know what it is and likely don't have access to it.

[bencomp]

I just updated my pull request #134 to show the note about where to unpack OpenRefine as a callout. I feel happy about this and if noone objects, I will merge the pull request on Monday.