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Bug 420624 - Nautilus desktop icons are not placed relative to primary monitor / head
Nautilus desktop icons are not placed relative to primary monitor / head
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: nautilus
Classification: Core
Component: Desktop
2.18.x
Other All
: Normal minor
: ---
Assigned To: Nautilus Maintainers
Nautilus Maintainers
: 580366 663922 665800 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2007-03-20 17:36 UTC by Chris Lord
Modified: 2018-01-02 18:47 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: 2.17/2.18



Description Chris Lord 2007-03-20 17:36:25 UTC
Nautilus icons are placed relative to the top-left most screen instead of the primary screen. This means that when you change your screen configuration (as is quite common on laptops, for example) and if your primary screen isn't the top-left most screen, your icons will jump about and get rearranged.

It would be nicer (imo) if icons were placed relative to the primary head so that they're less likely to be rearranged when changing monitor configuration.

Other information:
Comment 1 Jamin W. Collins 2012-05-30 00:55:04 UTC
This bug is still present in Gnome 3.  No idea why it's still listed as
unconfirmed other than most people probably don't have the access necessary to
change it.  This is most definitely a confirmed bug effecting multiple users,
simple Google search will confirm that.
Comment 2 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-10-04 18:12:33 UTC
*** Bug 580366 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 3 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-10-04 18:14:19 UTC
*** Bug 663922 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-10-04 18:15:30 UTC
*** Bug 665800 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Cosimo Cecchi 2012-10-04 21:57:19 UTC
I now pushed a fix for this to git master.
Comment 6 Martin Szulecki 2012-10-28 15:10:05 UTC
The described bug message only applies to the laptop user use-case and not to desktops with fixed multi-display setups!

For the latter group this "fix" actually breaks a long working use-pattern and suddenly enforces new rules that make it impossible to arrange the icons on the other screens!

What I would consider a bug is the sole process where desktop icons get completely rearranged when a display is hotplugged and thus loosing the "customization" the user created.

What this "fix" did though is to actually make it impossible for users to arrange icons onto the extended desktop in certain multi-display setups like it was before.
Comment 7 Cosimo Cecchi 2013-03-19 23:35:09 UTC
I reverted the fix from git for 3.8, since it proved to be more problematic than this bug itself.
Coming up with a solution trying to cover both use cases is kinda hard for how NautilusCanvasView works.
Comment 8 treffner 2014-12-12 08:57:57 UTC
I understand that there is no easy solution to this. But why is the Status UNCONFIRMED? This is still bothering me here with 2 fixed monitors on my desktop at Fedora 21.
Comment 9 Brian J. Murrell 2017-08-30 10:36:25 UTC
I wonder why this cannot be user selectable.

I have an nvidia dual-head display.  It's combined in the driver into a single screen:

screen #0:
  dimensions:    2680x1920 pixels (709x508 millimeters)

But I would like the icons to be on the monitor on the right, not on the left.  I can select them all and move them there but as soon as I utilise something like "Organize Desktop by Name" they all jump back to the screen on left.

So what if the user could tell Nautilus the boundaries on a given screen inside which icons are allowed to be placed, by, say, drawing a box?

That could even be useful to people with single displays.
Comment 10 Carlos Soriano 2017-08-30 11:18:59 UTC
(In reply to Brian J. Murrell from comment #9)
> I wonder why this cannot be user selectable.
> 
> I have an nvidia dual-head display.  It's combined in the driver into a
> single screen:
> 
> screen #0:
>   dimensions:    2680x1920 pixels (709x508 millimeters)
> 
> But I would like the icons to be on the monitor on the right, not on the
> left.  I can select them all and move them there but as soon as I utilise
> something like "Organize Desktop by Name" they all jump back to the screen
> on left.
> 
> So what if the user could tell Nautilus the boundaries on a given screen
> inside which icons are allowed to be placed, by, say, drawing a box?
> 
> That could even be useful to people with single displays.

Basically, because the current code is already extremely complex.
Comment 11 António Fernandes 2018-01-02 18:47:46 UTC
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/