GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 159245
Volumes visible on desktop; fundamental differences between vfs-shares and local devices
Last modified: 2018-01-02 18:49:33 UTC
I think that the way volumes show up on the desktop is a great way to visualise mounted devices and to make it easy to unmount them. But, I don't think that mounted vfs-shares should follow the same rules. Connected devices and mounted remote shares is fundamentally different. Connected devices is used on a day-to-day basis, are easy to insert and remove, mount and unmount. Remote vfs-shares on the other hand isn't normally used as much. They aren't easy to mount and unmount (you have to remember not only user name but a password and address too) and you don't have any real reason to unmount/mount them, they connects when needed. So too treat local devices and remote VFS-shares the same regarding their places on the desktop doesn't really make sense. I don't think that it's a good idea too have mounted VFS-shares show up on the desktop, but I think it's great for local devices. I for one mount remote sites once just too remember user name, password and address. So after a while I tend to have a lot of mounted vfs-shares of which I use one or maybe two once or twice a week, to have all those icons sitting on the desktop just clutters it. But on the other hand would I really like to have my sd-card and cd-rom automatically show up when inserted. So, I suggest that vfs-shares and local devices should be treated differently. Local devices should show up on the desktop when mounted and vfs-shares shouldn't.
*** Bug 165234 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
#165234 has some ideas about this too: "I would like to see the key /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible split up into (at least) removable media and network servers. As network servers have a pretty permanent presence on the desktop, I currently disable this setting (these mounted icons are clutter), however, now I'm missing the icons of e.g. a CDROM when I insert one. Ideally, I could disable /apps/nautilus/desktop/network_volumes_visible and enable /apps/nautilus/desktop/removable_volumes_visible (or something similar)."
Shouldn't they just show up in the "Network Servers" or network:/// folders? Or am I completely missing the point?
One more thing... Is this really an enhancement?
*** Bug 152390 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I'm willing to put some love into this one, if some ofo the developers could help me out with some of the decisions. Currently, the display of volumes on the desktop is toggled by /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible. Because network shares and mounted cds are fundamentally different, you'd want the short lived cds on your desktop, but the long lasting network shares shouldn't be there all the time, so we'll need a more finer grained way of controlling this. GnomeVFSVolumeType defines the following types: GNOME_VFS_VOLUME_TYPE_MOUNTPOINT, GNOME_VFS_VOLUME_TYPE_VFS_MOUNT, GNOME_VFS_VOLUME_TYPE_CONNECTED_SERVER. Which gconf keys should be used to designate the visibility of which type? I've found that the needed changes will happen in the libnautilus-private directory, mostly in the nautilus-desktop-link-monitor.c file. Can someone point me in the right direction on the gconf keys? Then I can start working on a (simple) patch for this behavior.
Ruben: maybe you would like to help on related bug 133907 and bug 164406 too? It would help us with a translation problem if we could reduce the usage of the word Volume.
Ubuntu bug about that: https://launchpad.net/products/nautilus/+bug/35147 "Nautilus has a "volumes_visable" setting in GConf but when enabled it also shows all network volumes. This can be excessive. It would be nice to add a setting "network_volumes_visable". With this one could still see usb drives, cd's etc that are mounted but not be overridden with many network volumes. In a work setting it can get rediculous."
*** Bug 342797 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
updating version.
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/