GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 113640
per workspace saved desktop states
Last modified: 2012-05-04 20:39:36 UTC
Hey, I have a few suggestions about getting the desktop even more flexible. This function would be almost like using the themes functions. This would mean a function "Right Click -> Desktop States -> Desktop Name" and could have different settings for the icons and such. Example: You have 4 workspaces. They are all going to be in different ways. 1. You have one desktop called "Work" 2. One with the name "Home" 3. One with the name "Empty" 4. Another with "Empty" Right clicking on the desktop shows a menu called "Desktop States" where different states are listed. So you go to workspace 1 and "Right Click -> Desktop States -> Work" and it will show you a environment for working purpose. Suddenly you want to change _all_ your desktops to the "Work" environment so you go "Right Click -> Desktop States -> Put On All Workspaces". Preferences: This could be some of these options: * Directory that the desktop state should show (instead of linking directories) * Icons size (This could also have a Hide all option) * Name (Desktop State name) * Background Image? * Startup settings. (Example: Workspace 1 use "work", Workspace 2 use "home" etc.) * Keystrokes to change them (Maybe this should be done for the WMs instead?) * Show on only workspace * (To specify the workspace the state should only be used) A small explanation about this would be. Dynamic desktop look. Different desktop looks for different purposes. Almost like switching between computers with the monitor but you have it directly in nautilus and with keystrokes.
This is a really good idea. In addition it would be nice if you could also specify programs to launch when it is activated. For example I would like to activate gkrellm, Evolution, and XChat when a particular desktop state was activated. This would make it easy to restore your desktop to the way you want it. So of course, a 'Save Desktop State' would be nice too. It would be like a mini version of sessions.
An excellent addition worth looking into. This could be as simple as can be. When i play games i could have a game desk.With appropriate desk layout, background, set of desktop shortcuts that apply to games. When im in Multimedia i could have the multimedia ( planetCCRMA ) stuff up on screen.Would make for a much cleaner desk cause it would cut down on the number of shortcuts on the desk in all cases. If you think about it for a while, this would even make sense in the panel. ex we have the workspace switcher there, could in a right click on the switcher ,we have access to the desk styles ? Ex i right click on workspace 1 and i choose what that desk is ? Food for thought .. But certainly a feature that would become a hit tomorrow morning and might recup a lot of frustrated Nautilus users back in the wagon : ) Richard Hebert
Yeah a very cool idea. It would be like the screen(1) utility, but for a desktop instead of a shell. When the user logs in, the session manager would simply connect each workspace to the "Desktop State" ("Project State" might be a better description) that was in place when the user last logged out, delegating the actual program-startup/session-management code to each "Project State". Each "Project" can be "opened"/"closed"/"saved" from a workspace (through a sub-menu from right-click on the desktop?). In summary, the proposed settings for a Project are: 1) Which directory Nautilus shows as the Desktop (this would have the effect of allowing per-Project desktop icon size/placement customization since, in Nautilus directories are already customizable according to icon size/placement) 2) Background image 3) Panel settings/layout
"Project" idea stuff taken from: http://log.ometer.com/2003-11.html#27 On the control-center side of things: bug 48004
Updating the summary of this bug to make it more accurate.
Nice idea. Too bad it's been about 5 years since it was reported. (and it's still NEW! :) Any chance of this getting implemented? Having the Desktop icons hidden or shown would be a fine option (and could be implemented simply by having a workspace point to an empty directory). I might suggest just changing $HOME/Desktop to be a symlink to $HOME/Desktops/default. Then other desktop directories (or symlinks to external directories) could be added under $HOME/Desktops.
This doesn't really make any sense now in the new dynamic workspace model of GNOME 3; the desktop is disabled by default and will be phased out completely in the future, so I think it makes sense to close this as WONTFIX.