Re: Icons on the desktop

[Giovanni Campagna <scampa giovanni gmail com>]

On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 1:18 AM, Dylan McCall <dylanmccall gmail com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 1:07 PM, Jeff <web kiddo free fr> wrote:
>> Hello folks,
>> I looked a bit through the mailing list archives and couldn't find a topic
>> about this so far... Do the GNOME Shell devs / usability team have any
>> position regarding "showing icons (or not)" on the desktop? (currently,
>> /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop = False)
>>
>> While we have had icons on the GNOME desktop since time immemorial, I
>> believe those are unnecessary nowadays. They are cruft and file placement
>> micro-management, and I personally believe the Shell would be a great way to
>> fix the issues that caused this relic to exist.
>>
>> Any thoughts? Outrage? Insults? :)
>> (I wanted to keep this mail short just to "test the waters", but I could
>> make a proper essay on PGO if some are interested)
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>>
>>
>
> The desktop being drawn by the file manager is the remnant of a
> file-centric design. That design, while possibly elegant, is becoming
> irrelevant because of the app-centric design we have coming from the
> web and now popular smartphone operating systems.

First, as I see it, GNOME 3 is not going to be app-centric. On the contrary, it
is going to be document-centric (with lighter applications, putting
common options
in the AppMenu). Of course, document-centric means focused on single files,
not any particular way to store them (a filesystem).

> At this point, I think it is silly to still have file management as
> the largest, most personalized and immediately accessible thing in
> Gnome 3.

It depends on what you mean with file management. If you start including
GIO and GtkFileChooser, then it is true, it is the largest component in GNOME,
but it could not be else, as people expect to work on files and
applications need files
and underlying operating systems think in terms of files.

>
> Besides, if Nautilus is now considered a technical utility for
> advanced users, why should it still run at startup to draw the biggest
> part of the desktop?

I agree that GS should be responsible for the desktop, but I don't
agree that Nautilus
is a techical utility (Midnight Commander is for advanced filesystem
management).
If I want to see my documents, I click "Places" -> "Documents" and
expect some sort of file manager to appear, showing my folders and my
files; same for
pictures or music.
I don't expect GAJ, F-Spot or Rythmbox, even though they are better
for handling those
files. I expect Nautilus.

>
> Dylan
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