Re: [Nautilus-list] Nautilus vs. xpenguins

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 03:41:22PM +0800 or thereabouts, Ian McKellar wrote:
> On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 03:15:21PM -0700, Ben Ford wrote:
> > 
> > We had this discussion months ago.  I was very vocal complaining about 
> > this "feature" but the Eazel folks wanted to make it look pretty.
> 
> Okay, there can only be one window which is the desktop. Can you tell me
> how on earth you justify that that should be cutesy hacks rather than your
> file manager?

Since I rarely run a file manager or xsnow/xroach/roottail except
when a friend wants to know what this Linux thing is all about, this 
is a little academic :) But first, I don't have to justify "I think 
xsnow is cute": it's my computer, my desktop, and if I want to run 
xsnow, that little shaped window that does a cat running around the 
screen, (niko? neko? mico? Something like that) or roottail, then I
can. I don't, actually, but if I ran them, "I Like Them (tm)" would 
be my justification :) 

More saliently, people used to X but not Linux or X desktop environments 
(whether KDE or Gnome) tend to _expect_ to have a root window they
can run cutesy apps (or roottail, which is not really cutesy) in. 
They know what "root window" means. To a lot of new folks, it means 
"window you are running as root in" -- which is a perfectly rational 
thing for them to think, certainly. But to people who are used to X, 
they expect the root window to be there. 

I don't know whether CDE leaves the root window alone, but if it
does, then all the people we expect to move from that to Gnome
under Solaris or HP/UX will probably make this complaint/observation/
request for "what's going on?" when they do so. If CDE leaves it
alone, It would be worth remembering to have a FAQ entry about Nautilus
and the root window when people start to switch over. 

Telsa