Are they any specific standards to keep the settings of an application for linux?

Question

I'm planning on develop a java application to be cross platform. I find out that the settings of a mac application are usually kept in a file named info.plist. By looking for a similar file in my Ubuntu box I found that my applications create hidden folders in the home directory. Is that the only standard?

Answer 1

There is an effort by the (largely ignored, unfortunately) freedesktop.org group to standardize this across Linux desktops:

http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/config-spec

The references on that page, especially at the bottom, should give you some idea of the mess of this landscape.

Also that page is several years old, I believe. Don't hold your breath.