GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 595320
Adding launchers on desktop: switch from deskop style to panel style
Last modified: 2010-10-16 22:13:03 UTC
Gnome-shell replaces/combines gnome panels and WM. Creating launchers on desktop is more complicated then it used to be on panel. An example: To create 'Take screenshot' launcher on desktop you need to figure out the command to start it (/usr/bin/gnome-screenshot). On gnome panel you could just point on application name. Even simpler: on panel it was possible just drag application icon to the panel and leave it as launcher there. In gnome-shell dragging application icon to workspace just launches application on the workspace.
Why would you need to add launchers to the desktop? The Shell should replace this IMHO. Just add you favorite apps to the app well...
I want to start that particular application immediately without going to Activities and browsing there. It may work with immediate access to Activities>Frequent list. Say, clicking anywhere on desktop with middle/wheel botton gives access to Frequent. It is still short in a way you want access application you use once in a while and Frequent doesn't keep it in a list.
Since switching to GNOME Shell i do not use desktop launchers, cause it's much faster to switch to an overview mode than to minimize windows that hide a desktop from me. :) Magic corner makes it even as fast as using panel launcher for me. But I foresee that people will start complaining about launchers. :) So, refining desktop launcher creation would lessen the rate of complains. And there's another idea - let user create a launcher (in an application well or a desktop) from a running application window. It might be also useful to have an option to create a launcher/link of a document currently opened in a window.
Yes, gnome-shell needs a way to have some sort of panel or "well" for custom launchers. Stuff that are not part of the typical desktop applications. People will complain loudly if they can't use their custom apps this way. For example, currently I have, in an auto-hiding panel (*): - a few launchers that point to network locations such as sftp://jeff@somehost:443/foo/bar ** - a launcher to a development version of an app, pointing to /home/jeff/trunks/jokosher/Jokosher/Jokosher - a launcher to a custom shell script such as /home/jeff/programmation/reprobe_atsc_tuner.sh And so on. *: because I don't use them every day, but still use them frequently/urgently enough that they warrant custom launchers. **: this is mainly because the current implementation of network bookmarks is broken since gnome 2.20 or something... gnome-shell has much potential to fix this properly with bug #604006 and bug #597887.
I ended up with four workspaces and about ten launcers on desktop just below top menubar. It works like this: * - switch workspace; * - start one or more application there; * - switch to different workspace to start different application. Basically, it looks like static wbar for launching single application on workspace.
We're actually hopefully going to be removing all icons, files, and launchers from the background behind windows. So, I'm not sure this bug still applies.
Maybe!? As Owen told me once: "it isn't a bug". My interpretation: gnome 3 is gonna be what developers decide. Whatever.