GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 613111
Desktop icons can be hidden
Last modified: 2015-02-02 16:04:42 UTC
Created attachment 156326 [details] desktop icons hidden by the bottom tray Dear all, first thank you for your great work, I love Gnome. i think that the current behavior of the desktop icons is a mess, and far from being "ergonomic" like Gnome aims to be: icons hidden by mistake, not aligned, new icons appearing anywhere, "keep aligned" not working, text mixed with other icons... i saw several patches, but is there someone centralizing the work on this ? or is this voluntarily abandoned because of Gnome3 ? here are related bug reports: - Bug 530430 (with patch)- Desktop icons should have vertical align grid and exact size - Bug 472289 - Desktop icons not aligned properly - Bug 557215 - Icon alignment problems - Bug 562594 - Icons overlap in the desktop - Bug 601469 - "Keep aligned" should have a snap to grid behaviour - Bug 330414 - Default icon placement leaves icons halfway off-screen - Bug 401670 - Auto arrange - Bug 586294 - icons on desktop mostly hidden after a change of screen resolution - Bug 591313 - New items aren't properly aligned when an RTL-language is used As a complement, please find 2 screenshots: - one showing desktop icons hidden by the bottom tray - the other showing how randomly the new icons (screenshots, USB devices) appear on the desktop
Created attachment 156327 [details] see the screenshots on the desktop to visualize the random places they go to
I'm wondering some of the same things you are. As you may recall, I was posting some patches to try to clean up the desktop, but I'm not sure what direction the desktop is going in. In December 2009, there was a discussion on the mailing list about gnome-shell and where nautilus is heading, but all I can conclude is the desktop won't be drawn by default. I think the abandonment of the desktop entirely would be a rather radical change that wouldn't be welcomed be some. I would guess the Nautilus desktop would continue to be used in some cases, even with Gnome 3. Personally, I use the desktop as a temporary storage place, which is why I wanted to improve it in the first place. I think it could be worthwhile to look into ways of making it better, but ultimately I think the Nautilus developers need to have a more concrete decision on the role of the Nautilus desktop with Gnome 3. IMHO the best solution would be to maintain the desktop icons as an option, and make it easy to turn on and off (that is, through the Preferences GUI, along with gconf). If the desktop will be continued to be used at all, the icon layout methods should probably be reconsidered or redone, and this could be quite a bit of work. While I do have opinions about direction of the desktop and want to do what I can to fix it, I don't know if I will have the time to follow through with the improvements. Perhaps if I would take this on as a Google Summer of Code project (or just work on it during the summer), I could make some progress, but so far I've been learning the Nautilus internals as I go and have limited time due to Mechanical Engineering coursework. As far as I know, nobody else has been working on this (at least recently), so perhaps this should be discussed in the mailing list.
I try to complete the list above: - Bug 530430 (with patch)- Desktop icons should have vertical align grid and exact size - Bug 472289 - Desktop icons not aligned properly - Bug 557215 - Icon alignment problems - Bug 562594 - Icons overlap in the desktop - Bug 601469 - "Keep aligned" should have a snap to grid behaviour - Bug 330414 - Default icon placement leaves icons halfway off-screen - Bug 401670 (with 2 patchs) - Auto arrange - Bug 586294 - icons on desktop mostly hidden after a change of screen resolution - Bug 591313 - New items aren't properly aligned when an RTL-language is used - Bug 332298 - Icons not properly aligned when dragged to desktop - Bug 129937 - Auto-realign desktop icons to grid on icon-theme changes when desktop is kept aligned - Bug 560788 - Keep Aligned right click menu option should not allow desktop icon overlap - Bug 143311 - Grid Should Be Adjustable - Bug 566479 - Use a proper square grid for icon placement on desktop and in windows We have 3 patchs: - Bug 401670 : patch that sorts the icon container before a successful add/remove icon op (by Nick Bargnesi, 2007-04) - Bug 530430 : patch that makes the hozitonal and veritical snap size the same (by Dylan Smith, 2008-08) - Bug 530430 : patch to add gconf keys to make the snap distances configurable (by Gerhard Bräunlich, 2009-10) (I am not any more on the mailing-list, please alert me if a discussion starts on this subject). Hope this helps solving this desktop related bugs (that IMHO should be taken more seriously into account, as there are very visible by the users). Regards
I note two things: . GNOME 3 has been put back until March 2011, so we will be using GNOME 2 for a while yet. . The latest nautilus-icon-container sources in GIT have none of the patches suggested. What is the status of this bug - seriously probably the most noticeable deficiency in GNOME now? PLEASE can we have ONE of the solutions above (my preference is mix between Bill's patch for Bug 601469, and Gerhard Bräunlich's patch to add gconf keys).
Please make the GNOME desktop icon grid configurable (horizontal spacing, vertical spacing and ALSO maximum width for icon labels because the wrapping of icon labels is just awful: the names of the application are always overlapping no matter what desktop font size you choose). I'm using Ubuntu 10.10 x86_64 Kernel 2.6.35-22-generic # 35-Ubuntu with GNOME 2.32.0. This issue seems to persist since about 9 years. And originally it was reported at least 5 years ago. Thank You very much in advance. Regards, Dennis
As we faced this issue/bug/problem while traversing icon to icon on desktop by using keyboard navigation. Please confirm following: Is anybody working to make the GNOME desktop icon grid configurable? Any plans to get updated the same in GNOME3.0? if yes where to find? What is the status now? If Nothing doing, then can we discuss it again, as I am interested to work on this issue. (if possible) With regards Leena
Working for Objective: Traversing all item on desktop icon view (Completeness) Problem faced: "Completeness while traversing on Desktop icon view". Details:While traversing on Desktop icon view using same arrow key (assume down arrow key), when control come to last icon of column, it is not going anywhere and hanged. Then user has to use other arrow key like right/back/left to traverse other items on Desktop. Here chances are to skip some item or to miss any item while traversing. This can be a big issues for accessibility point of view (For vision impairment). Solution Patch:Now including this patch will give desktop icon view traversing with completeness. Means, using same arrow key (Down arrow key) when control comes on last item of column then control will go to the topmost item of next column. It will not hanged on last item of a column and user will be able to traverse from first item to last item without skip any more i.e. with completeness. Feedback and Comments are welcome With regards Leena
Created attachment 191794 [details] [review] To traverse item on desktop icon view (without missing i.e. completeness) with same arrow key (Down arrow key)
Comment on attachment 191794 [details] [review] To traverse item on desktop icon view (without missing i.e. completeness) with same arrow key (Down arrow key) Since I did not get any reply from community for my last comment 6, I have worked on the bug and posted details in comment 7. Please find this patch in continuation to my last comment. Assumption: On desktop icon view set "Clean Up icons by name"
Review of attachment 191794 [details] [review]: Please stick to the coding style of the existing file and clean up the patch: * Your code uses spaces for indentation while all other code uses tabs * You use if(foo) while the code style if (foo) - missing spaces * You use dx==0 while the code style is dx == 0 - missing spaces * Please use /* */ instead of // * Please use } else { instead of three seperate lines * You have unused commented code that should go away
* You unneededly duplicate empty lines
Created attachment 195776 [details] [review] Updated patch "Easy navigation on desktop iconview"
Dear Andre, Thanks for review. Please find the updated patch attached with comment 12
Comment on attachment 195776 [details] [review] Updated patch "Easy navigation on desktop iconview" * Stuff like "){" is still wrong. * find_best_icon(container is still missing a whitespace. * "/* original code */" does not make sense when somebody reads the code.
Created attachment 208190 [details] [review] ""Easy navigation on desktop iconview" Please check and give your feedback.
Comment on attachment 208190 [details] [review] ""Easy navigation on desktop iconview" For details check comment-7
Comment on attachment 208190 [details] [review] ""Easy navigation on desktop iconview" For the third time: Style issues: " = " vs "=", " == " vs "==", "if (" vs "if(", "printf(" vs "printf (", etc etc...
Created attachment 208229 [details] [review] updated patch OK Andre, I have corrected the patch for coding style. Please apply and check for the proposed functionality. regards
We could continue these reviews for a few more rounds as there are still lots of different styles in your patch (whitespace vs. no whitespace in front of opening brakets; "( foo )" vs "(foo)" style, but I don't feel like having the time for this, and I (as a non-developer) am afraid that the repeated inability to apply the surrounding coding style also implies something about the quality of the code. I'm out...
Comment on attachment 208229 [details] [review] updated patch 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.
We no longer use a bottom bar in the desktop environment. Also, not too much interest in nautilus-desktop these days. Reopen if patch updated and worth the effort. Closing for now.