Re: Should Desktop = Home?

[Samuel Abels <newsgroups debain org>]

On Sun, 2004-10-03 at 11:34, gabor wrote:
> and there seems to be only one central reason:
>     -your Desktop is your document store
>         -means that every FILE in ~/Desktop is an atomic unit
>         -means that deleting any FILE from ~/Desktop is safe
>         -means you can delete anything that's on the desktop,
>         and all your apps will still work

Plus, that fact that the desktop becomes your document store implies
that you need to have you music files on the desktop even though you
never access them directly (but through a music player instead).

Though it doesn't apply to me, I understand the people who do not like
that idea. There should be a way to store data without having it on the
desktop. Using hidden files for that is also not a nice (easily
accessible) solution, because when you access the data you will have to
search it between all the configfile clutter.

> anyway, to have $HOME or $HOME/Desktop is not really the big issue here.
> the big issue is that the user has 2 (two) directories where he should
> look for files. and that's a bad thing.

Agreed. I often end up looking through $HOME though the file appeared
behind the current window on the desktop (and v.v.).

> so, if we promote $HOME/Desktop as the document store, why do we
> provide an icon on the desktop that takes them back th $HOME?

We have it, so it should be accessible, I guess.

> maybe because many-apps-still-save-files-into-$HOME-and-so-on?

Exactly. When you log into your System, distributions will start up with
your home directory being the working directory.
Now some programs operate in the current working directory. This may
sometimes be a good thing, but you will be presented your $HOME though
you don't really care about it.

Now that issue could be solved

a) by making the distribution start up with $PWD set to ~/Desktop/. In
that case, the $HOME-Icon could be removed from the desktop.
b) by inverting the logic: Make $HOME the Desktop and provide an
"~/Off-Desktop Files/" folder for non-visible stuff.
c) by offering a GUI option for explicitly hiding a folder from the
desktop.
d) somehow else.

I favour b) so far.

> to reformulate:
> should the users simply forget about $HOME?
> if that's the case, we should remove that icon from the desktop.

As long as we can not provide a better place for storing non-visible
data, I vote we shouldn't.

-Samuel