Re: Major change in desktop handling

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>]

On Fri, 2003-05-16 at 17:04, Manuel Clos wrote:
> Sean Middleditch wrote:

> > With ~/Desktop, only what I want on the desktop is on the desktop.  In
> > $HOME, all the UNIX noise is there too.
> 
> Yeah, I don't want to force everyone to use $HOME as desktop, just make 
> it the default. Take into account that I'm using $HOME as desktop even 
> when it is not the default. I just want to argue that it is a better 
> default:

I used to believe so.  I've been using $HOME as my desktop for many
months - longer than I can remember.  (Right after GNOME2 came out,
iirc.)  And honestly, it sucks.  I deal with it only because I spend a
ton of effort fixing all the "broken" apps that work fine for every
other desktop users - all those that don't use $HOME as desktop.

> 
> -> simpler, just one filesel button, just one "Work" place

Again, $HOME is file storage.  You have to have somewhere to stick stuff
you aren't working with.  I have a huge store of PDF documents in $HOME
at work from stuff that I post for the public.  I don't work on them, I
don't read them, I just store them.  Why have this folder always on my
desktop when the only time I ever use it is when I save a file from
Evolution, then upload to the content management system?

> -> no I10n issues!!! This is very important and I have seen no one to 
> argue about this when using "~/Escritorio", nice eh!?

You have to localize $HOME anyhow.  You don't always say "Home", you use
whatever word.  You have "Elanthis' ${WORD_FOR_HOME}" in the icons. 
It's only in the main file-system view you deal with this, and we don't
localize the UNIX file-heirarchy _anyways_ - hell, I just learned today
what usr actually stands for.  It's all meaningless dribble.  ;-)  In
any event, it shouldn't be that hard to abstract away.

> -> you show the user his/her files!! Isn't *direct manipulation* in HIG???

You also organize files.  With $HOME, the best you can do is make a
folder called Documents or something, and put all the files in folders
in there, to keep from having 8 billion things on your desktop.

Oops, damn, wait, we can't have Documents, that's no localizable, right?
;-)

> -> forces you to clean up things

That's not good.  This "you must be clean" is irritating.  I kept my
$HOME perfectly neat even before I used $HOME as desktop.  I like my
filesystem to be neat.  My workspace is a total mess.  All $HOME as
desktop does is make the user make a folder and dumb all their crap in
there, if they don't want to be organized.  It doesn't make it any
cleaner, it just forces them to do the effort of making the file
dumpster, vs. having it already separated from the desktop.

> -> ...

-- 
Sean Middleditch <elanthis awesomeplay com>
AwesomePlay Productions, Inc.