Re: Nautilus desktop icons and metacity

["D. D. Brierton" <darren dzr-web com>]

On Sun, 2003-06-01 at 08:33, Petri Kanerva wrote:
> Sorry, if this will sounds hostile. 

Don't worry about that! :-) I had reservations about posting my original
mail anyway, as I know that there was a strong chance I was just
bringing up something that many feel is an already settled matter.

> If you want to have icons that are always visible, use the panel. That
> won't be covered.

That won't work for icons for hot-pluggable devices that appear and
disappear as they are connected and disconnected.

> It would be somewaht idiotic for a windowmanger to
> start avoiding desktop icons.

If that is the case (because, for example, the window placement
algorithm would become so complex it would be unusably slow) then all
the more reason to have the default position of the icons somewhere that
will remain visible most of the time.

> You can always bind a key to the "show
> desktop" function and use that when you want to see the desktop icons.
> It's just one shortcut away.

I thought that something is more usable if it takes only one click to
perform an action than if it takes two.

> And you can always move the icons to the
> right side by yourself.

Again, that won't work for icons which appear and disappear as CDs are
inserted and ejected, and USB and FireWire devices are connected and
disconnected. At the moment, if I have several windows open and connect
a device I don't even get the visual cue that it has been mounted
because the icon that appears for it on the desktop is obscured by my
open windows.

> I personally see no valid points in your mail.

None? I can understand that you may think that the arguments for having
desktop icons on the left outweigh the arguments for having them on the
right, but there *are* patently arguments for having them on the right -
I've just articulated them.

-- 
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D. D. Brierton            darren dzr-web com          www.dzr-web.com
       Trying is the first step towards failure (Homer Simpson)
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