GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 629913
Files on the desktop are put into a non-visible area of the desktop.
Last modified: 2018-01-02 18:51:08 UTC
I have a large number of files on my Desktop. When I create a new file and save it to the desktop it will put it down on the bottom left side of the screen under a file there. However this area of the screen is not visible! I can put my mouse pointer down under the visible area and click around until I grab the file and move it back into the visible are. I'm running with two displays. The resolution of of primary screen (where I lose the file) 1280x800 (16:10) the second monitor is set at 1440 x 900 (16:10). I suspect it is due to the difference in resolution. Two other comments. 1) I don't know if this bug was put in the correct place. 2) It is VERY difficult for a non-developer to report a bug to gnome since there are hundreds of options for various software. I don't have a clue what component of gnome the desktop display falls under.
Which nautilus version is this about? (-> version field of this report)
How do I find out the version number?
I have the same problem with Nautilus 2.30.1 and 2.31.2 —my system is Linux laptop-mentolado 2.6.32-21-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 16 08:10:02 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux. I have corrected it in 2.31.2. I've tried to compile the latest version of Nautilus using JHBuild and I've got it. But when I run it, the application acts very weird :S I would try to compile the latest version (without using JHBuild) to try to get a patch —I'm new here, so I need to find some info before I can send something to you.
Created attachment 183390 [details] [review] My proposed patch to fix this bug
Attached my proposal to fix this bug. The bug is in the process of looking for an empty position to locate a new icon. The function find_empty_position does that, assuming that the height of the screen is canvas_height = CANVAS_HEIGHT(container, allocation), but the user could have more than one monitor and s/he could be using them with the same display (extended monitor configuration), and they could have diferent heights. If so, canvas_height would have the height of the tallest, resulting in the posibility of drawing icons out of the visible area. I've tested this fix in a Linux Mint 10 system with Gnome 2.32.0, with Nautilus 2.31.2 compiled with ./configure && make and with 2.91.91 compiled using JHBuild. In both the bug are present and it gone with this correction.
Comment on attachment 183390 [details] [review] My proposed patch to fix this bug libnautilus-private/nautilus-icon-container.c does not exist anymore in git master. Hence setting 'needs-rework' as patch does not apply cleanly against git master.
Starting with version 3.28, nautilus will not handle the "files on desktop background" feature. For better alternatives, read this blog post https://csorianognome.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/nautilus-desktop-plans/