Re: RFC: Common desktop-wide paths

[Callum McKenzie <callum physics otago ac nz>]

> The desktop ends up a natural place for some downloads however and I'm
> not sure how you fix the two clashing things
> 
> Start web browser
> 	Drag PDF icon to desktop
> 
> v
> 
> Start web browser
> 	Right click PDF, download
> 
> Why do they end up in different places ?
Because you have selected different places. This becomes apparent when
you replace "drag the icon to the desktop" with "drag the icon to any
folder".

All that the Desktop and the Downloads folder have in common is that
both have been given some special status. That doesn't make them
equivalent destinations, even though they could be.

The current Downloads file encourages some sort of tidyness. Just like
the suggestions of the Documents etc. subfolders that started this
thread. The trade-off is one of encouraging good habits vs. making
things too rigid or too complicated.

Downloading directly to the Desktop discourages cleanliness if we have
no default place for things to go. It makes a lot of sense however if we
do have a default set of destinations, because then sorting is easy  and
obvious. There isn't even a need to open any folders, it's all just drag
and drop. 

I think we need the human to do the sorting, at least for the fairly
random range of files a web-browser provides access to. For a camera
where everything is (almost) guaranteed to be a photo, defaulting to the
Pictures directory makes sense.

 - Callum