Re: Global Desktop Items: A proposal

["Sayamindu Dasgupta" <sayamindu randomink org>]

Hi,

On 4/19/07, Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-04-18 at 02:14 +0530, Sayamindu Dasgupta wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I am working on enhancing some of the "deployment friendly" stuff in
> > GNOME as a part of my Google SoC, and one of the things I am working
> > on is support for predefined global items on the desktop. To make my
> > current goal clearer, here's a sample use case (stolen shamelessly
> > from a doc by my mentor, Federico Mena Quintero).
>
> I'm very busy this week, so I don't have much time for mail. However,
> I'd just like to point out that we have historically avoided adding
> these sorts of things, because that sort of changes the usecase of the
> desktop. The idea of the gnome desktop is more like the mac desktop than
> the windows desktop. Its a work area for the users files, where files
> are stored as they are being worked on, and then filed away or deleted
> as needed.
>
> The desktop is an important user folder, and should be 100% controlled
> by the user. It is not just a place for launchers of applications, those
> are generally put on the panel.


There seems to be a slight miscommunication here. The proposal
covers desktop items in general - which include links to files, online
resources, etc as well as application launchers. In many deployments,
especially unattended/understaffed deployments (for example, in large
university labs providing Internet access to the students), it is a
good idea to provide links to help documents, policy documents, etc on
the desktop itself. I don't think it would be a good idea to put links
for files (located in the system) on the panel. Even for application
launchers, a student who is accustomed to Windows might not be
familiar with the concept of having launchers in the panel (though
Windows has the feature) - the first place they would look is the
Desktop.
Moreover, for launchers, the primary reason to target the Desktop
space here is simply because it is the most visible region to user
(especially to a new user, even more for a un/semi skilled user who is
migrating from Windows and who might not be familiar with the new way
of looking at the desktop+panel)
IMHO, in deployment scenarios where only a few well defined jobs is
done on the desktop systems, it makes the most sense to keep the
launchers for the relevant applications on the desktop itself. For
example, I was recently evaluating a migration of a local BPO shop to
GNOME from windows, and the only application that the workers would be
using are Evince and OOCalc (it's a data entry shop). In such a
scenario, I think it would be much more sensible to keep only two
icons on the desktop - one which launches Evince and the other which
launches OOCalc.



> Another thing I worry about is if we start letting applications install
> things on users desktop we'll soon turn into the crap that is a standard
> windows desktop where its full of logos for various vendors. Windows
> even had to implement some form of checker that pops up a dialog and
> asks you if you want to delete unused launchers from the desktop.

I agree with you entirely. However, I am not proposing a global
directory like C:\All Users\Desktop in Windows where applications can
simply drop their launchers and clog up the Desktop. The directory
here for the mandatory and predefined is basically defined at a per
user (or rather, per profile - looking from the Sabayon perspective)
level. So it becomes quite difficult for an application to put
launchers in everyone's Desktop.
Also, this feature can be turned off by default, with a Gconf boolean
key to enable it if required.

> In your usecase, why can't the launchers be put on the panel instead? I
> didn't see any rationale fo that. And the URIs could also be put in the
> browser bookmarks.


Same as the argument for launchers. When there are only two/three urls
to be accessed (ie, company intranet, mail, web based app), imho, it
would be a better option to keep the links on the desktop itself.

I do appreciate your thoughts on the GNOME Desktop being more similar
to the Mac than Windows, where it is a work area for the users files,
where files are stored as they are being worked on, and then filed
away or deleted as needed.
However, in certain scenarios user files might be a non existent
concept altogether, and in such a situation it would be a good idea to
utilize the Desktop space in a different manner. For example, in the
BPO unit I mentioned, the workers do not have any user files. They
simply open up some PDF files from a remote Samba share (they are not
allowed to copy it to their own machines) and enter the data in those
files into a web based form. Another example would be a public
internet browsing machine (shared by hundreds of users), where it
might actually be a bad idea for the user to save anything in the
Desktop (or anywhere in the machine, for that matter).

Thanks,
Sayamindu


--
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]