Re: $HOME as desktop

[Darryl Rees <rees netnam vn>]

Owen Taylor wrote:

> Perhaps using $HOME is logically right, but practically
> speaking I can't see how it is even a possibility at
> all. We need to use ~/Desktop, and we need to spend our
> ingenuity in making that seem as consistent and robust
> as possible.
>
> Regards,
>                                     Owen
OK, following that train of thought for the moment...

If we use ~/Desktop there are lots of other issues that need to be 
decided on between Gnome/KDE/Others to get a consistent desktop. Maybe 
some/all of these have been discussed or resolved, I don't know.
- Does "My Documents", "My Pictures", etc belong in $HOME or ~/Desktop?
- Do file selectors include a Home as well as a Desktop selector?
- Do file selectors default to home or desktop?
- Does the file manager default to home or desktop?
- Should there be a Home icon on the desktop?
- Will Desktop be presented as the root of the Virtual filesystem as it 
is on windows? Windows has a Desktop which is considered a users' home 
directory. It is presented as the root object, "My Computer", "My 
Network Neighbourhood" etc are considered children of Desktop. There is 
other magic as well, eg. in Win9x to link "My Documents" in c:\ to the 
Desktop\My Documents.

If going for ~/Desktop, I would assume that $HOME will become pretty 
much deprecated and invisible.
ie. ~/Desktop, No, desktop, desktop, no, no idea.

Regards,
Long.