> I want it clearly visible such as ~/config.

No problems: define the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME to be like so.

> I don't want an additional and confusing ~/.local.

The idea is that data and config are different. Anyway, if you have different taste, that's ok, define $XDG_DATA_HOME to be the same as config.

> I don't want ~/Videos or ~/Pictures folders

That's not in the XDG spec.

> That's not in the XDG spec.

But it is. In the XDG user dir spec.

Wait, I get to blame XDG for this? I've never cared about dotfiles since they're invisible. But Videos, Pictures, etc. have always been a nuisance.

I already posted this above, but here is a repost, because I know exactly how you feel:

        cat ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs
        XDG_DESKTOP_DIR="$HOME/.Desktop"
        XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR="$HOME/tmp"
        XDG_TEMPLATES_DIR="$HOME/tmp"
        XDG_PUBLICSHARE_DIR="$HOME/tmp"
        XDG_DOCUMENTS_DIR="$HOME/tmp"
        XDG_MUSIC_DIR="$HOME/tmp"
        XDG_PICTURES_DIR="$HOME/tmp"
        XDG_VIDEOS_DIR="$HOME/tmp"

Note that XDG_DESKTOP_DIR and XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR have to point to different directories. In hindsight, this is obvious, but this is also a really stupid "security" bug-o-feature that costed countless hours to countless people.

> Note that XDG_DESKTOP_DIR and XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR have to point to different directories. In hindsight, this is obvious, but this is also a really stupid "security" bug-o-feature that costed countless hours to countless people.

It's not obvious at all. The only security issue is programs dumping "downloads" on your harddrive without asking you first. Sucks that this is yet another thing that Mozilla has copied from Chrome without thinking.

I shove them all into ~/docs and then edit my ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs file to match.