[Usability]Why Desktop Icons?

["Mike McKee" <mikenews hotmail com>]

Before I make a reference to something in GNOME, let me make a reference to a similar feature in Windows...

I've used Windows awhile now and have moved from crazed fan to counter-Microsoft over a course of years. One of those most aggravating features of it is the icons on the desktop. After awhile, I abuse this desktop and start storing icons on it for all kinds of things to the point where I can't find anything anymore. Often when I download something, I can pick where I want to put it. Now that there's this Desktop button in the Save As dialog, I click that and I store that file on the desktop. Later, supposedly, I am to move it from my desktop to a better location, but often priorities get in the way and I can't do anything about it. This also slows down the loading of the desktop, and every maximize, minimize, and movement of windows slows down.

Since then, I've switched my Windows 2000 configuration around now that I found an option where I can turn off desktop icons and merely show a bitmap or just a color there. This speeds up my desktop quite a bit, speeds up my login time, and forces me to be more organized.

GNOME, since the beginning, has icons on the desktop. It's almost a ripoff of Windows, which in turn was a ripoff of the Mac, which in turn was a ripoff of XEROX's original workstations in Palo Alto. My suggestion is that GNOME remove the icons from the desktop and switch all icons to the taskbar and menus. It distances them away from all the "knock-offs". It reduces clutter and creates a cleaner interface. It forces people to be a little more organized.

Or, perhaps GNOME could make this a new feature available to developers of GNOME themes, so that people who choose certain themes could take advantage of this feature.

Mike News