On Fri, 2003-05-16 at 22:58, Owen Taylor wrote:
> I really hesitate to jump in here, but I think it's
> worth stating clearly why $HOME as desktop isn't an
> option:
>
> - Upgrades: user upgrades to Red Hat 14.7. Suddenly,
> they have 531 files on their desktop, many of
> which don't fit on the screen. Unless they think
> to "clean up", some of these files may be lost
> forever because they are way off the screen.
>
> I think it's unreasonable to expect users to
> spend a day cleaning their home directory just
> because they switched to a new version of GNOME.
I'm not really sure what you mean here, but I assume you're talking
about a program which would use $HOME as the default behaviour for
downloading file.
Why would theses files appear in their home directory ? People get used
to behavior of the programs they use. People will get used to $HOME as
the desktop. And then, when downloading <insert any distribution name
here/>, user will not choose to download it under $HOME.
And even if they did, they would notice the increasing number of files
showing up in their home directory, and would probably realize they did
something wrong.
> - We don't control the other software the user
> runs, we don't control what software they run
> in the past; you may claim that everybody
> should change, but that isn't realistic; looking
> in my home directory.
>
> dcc - xchat is broken
> evolution - evolution is broken
> nsmail - Netscape 4 was broken several years ago
> GNUstep - wmaker was broken when I tried to
> reproduce a bug yesterday
> Mail - various traditionally unixy things are broken
> News - Gnus is broken
> Desktop - KDE is broken
>
> You get the picture. If we made $HOME the desktop
> we force the user to choose between having useless
> cruft on their desktop and not using other software.
Maybe the right answer would be to contact the authors of theses
program, and to involve them in this discussion. Maybe things would go
further that way.
Maybe, if after this big discussion, most people agree that programs
should not create folder in $HOME (at least if they are not hiden) - and
even if some outside programers disagree - Users, by asking the
programmers to comply to the standard (or to what the mass think), will
make him change is mind.
Anyway, I don't believe that the "Everybody is broken, so let's write
something borked too" is the good attitude toward solving this problem.
> - Quality user experience depends on consistency;
> not just within GNOME, but for all apps. How
> are Mozilla, and OpenOffice.org, and the
> Java file selector, and ... going to get the
> behavior right if GNOME uses ~ and KDE uses Desktop/ ?
Did any KDE developers commented on this issue ? If not, wouldn't it be
a good idea to start discussing the issue with them ?
PS:
I'm a long time Nautilus user (well, and was involved in the
development, a long time ago - until I got out of time).
I never tryed the $HOME as desktop configuration option until today. And
I love it, and feel it much more "natural" than the current default
behavior (be it .gnome-desktop or Desktop. Except that I'd tend to think
Desktop is _even more_ broken).
Anyway, just my 0.002 cents.
--
Yoann Vandoorselaere, http://www.prelude-ids.org
"Programming is a race between programmers, who try and make more and
more idiot-proof software, and universe, which produces more and more
remarkable idiots. Until now, universe leads the race" -- R. Cook
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