GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 695088
GNOME Classic forces desktop icons
Last modified: 2018-01-02 18:34:36 UTC
1. Log in to the new GNOME Classic mode in GNOME Shell 3.7.90+ 2. gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons 'false' What happens ------------ The desktop icons disappear but come back the next time you log in to GNOME Classic. Suggestion ---------- I'm thinking that we need an extra gsettings schema (perhaps something like org.gnome.desktop.backgrounds show-desktop-icons-classic). I think GNOME Fallback might like to enable desktop icons by default too. However, the ability to override the default is pretty important especially since nautilus-classic is listed in the RequiredComponents section of the gnome-session file.
I would just make nautilus ignore the setting entirely when in classic mode. Or just make it ignore the setting, period.
Matthias, I don't think that's a good idea. Why can't people choose whether they want to see desktop icons or not? It shouldn't be hardcoded into the gnome-session file. This could also have been done with an autostart file and it's not too hard to override autostarting. GNOME Classic & GNOME Fallback would have to identify as something other than GNOME though which would need a fair amount of work to make happen.
Not sure what that fallback thing is you keep mentioning...it doesn't exist anymore. Anyway, we've avoided autostart for the reason you mention. Nautilus actually ships an autostart file that has a condition for show-desktop-icons. The problem is that we can't easily and cleanly override the setting in classic mode. We do override a few settings, but that only works because gnome-shell already has an overrides system for those.
Just because GNOME developers dropped Fallback mode from Core and ripped out support from gnome-settings-daemon and elsewhere doesn't mean it doesn't exist any more. There are people that still want to run it and I don't think Debian or Edubuntu is ready to see it die yet. (I personally use GNOME Shell and like it but I hear feedback.) Anyway, I believe there's good reason to allow the default to be overridden by users and I believe my suggested fix in the original bug description would work and could be integrated nicely in Tweak Tool.
If you want desktop icon rendering to live on, please help with moving it to a standalone process. That way, nautilus can evolve to be a real application.
(In reply to comment #4) > Just because GNOME developers dropped Fallback mode from Core and ripped out > support from gnome-settings-daemon and elsewhere doesn't mean it doesn't exist > any more. Yes, it does not exist anymore as GNOME Fallback mode. That was the entire point of dropping it - we get out of maintaining all the compromises and workarounds that it required...
Matthias, how would we go about moving desktop icon rendering to a standalone process ? What widget(s) did nautilus use last for doing this ? Is there a general thumbnailing infrstructure yet we could reuse for this ? I'm asking from the POV of the Flashback session team, BTW; the needs for Classic session might differ.
The class that is used is NautilusDesktopWindow.
It's a long shot but what about using pcmanfm to render the desktop in gnome flashback (fallback) ? The command pcmanfm --desktop does the job. The desktop can be right clicked, icons can be added and the wallpaper can be set. The only regression I can find is that the wallpaper can no longer be set from gnome-control-center
I don't want to leave this bug open forever. Classic mode exists only to cater to conservative users. Surely the target audience here is people who want desktop icons? I think Jeremy was mostly concerned about the old fallback mode; surely that ship has long since sailed.
(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #10) > I don't want to leave this bug open forever. Classic mode exists only to > cater to conservative users. Surely the target audience here is people who > want desktop icons? > > I think Jeremy was mostly concerned about the old fallback mode; surely that > ship has long since sailed. I don't think so. Jeremy's point was, that users of the Classic mode are forced to use icons on the desktop and can not disable it anymore. I agree it's good to have desktop icons for GNOME Classic users by default. On the other hand I don't see a good reason why it should be forbidden for those users to disable that feature if they prefer so.
I really don't want to reintroduce the logic we had for that, now that the desktop and nautilus are separated in different processes. That lead to a fair amount of complexity. The classic desktop is intended for that visual and workflow we had in gnome2 days. In case you only want part of it, you can still install those parts (the gnome-shell extensions). So I'm marking as WONTFIX since you are able to install and use parts of the classic desktop separately, instead of adding settings for all of its parts.
(In reply to Carlos Soriano from comment #12) > In case you only want part of it, you can still install those parts (the > gnome-shell extensions). > > So I'm marking as WONTFIX since you are able to install and use parts of the > classic desktop separately, instead of adding settings for all of its parts. Hm, can you tell me how I can disable icons on a desktop as regular user?
If you want GNOME Classic without the desktop icons, you could create a GNOME session based upon the GNOME Classic session but which doesn't specify nautilus-classic as a required component. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME/Tips_and_tricks#Custom_GNOME_sessions
(In reply to Charles Bos from comment #14) > If you want GNOME Classic without the desktop icons, you could create a > GNOME session based upon the GNOME Classic session but which doesn't specify > nautilus-classic as a required component. See > https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME/ > Tips_and_tricks#Custom_GNOME_sessions That's not possible as a lowly user
(In reply to Michael Biebl from comment #13) > (In reply to Carlos Soriano from comment #12) > > > In case you only want part of it, you can still install those parts (the > > gnome-shell extensions). > > > > So I'm marking as WONTFIX since you are able to install and use parts of the > > classic desktop separately, instead of adding settings for all of its parts. > > Hm, can you tell me how I can disable icons on a desktop as regular user? You mean using classic mode? It's not possible, classic mode is intended to use as it was gnome 2, including desktop icons and all of those gnome-shell extensions. You mean you want a custom mix between classic mode and not classic? Then is what I suggested, install the gnome-shell extensions and theme you want or/and activate desktop icons.
(In reply to Michael Biebl from comment #15) > (In reply to Charles Bos from comment #14) > > If you want GNOME Classic without the desktop icons, you could create a > > GNOME session based upon the GNOME Classic session but which doesn't specify > > nautilus-classic as a required component. See > > https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME/ > > Tips_and_tricks#Custom_GNOME_sessions > > That's not possible as a lowly user Whoops, I missed that bit. In that case, I think killing nautilus on startup in a GNOME Classic session should do the trick though I don't have a GNOME Classic desktop in front of me to test this on. Not a very clean solution I'll admit. Or you could turn on the GNOME Classic extensions in a standard GNOME session as was suggested above.
(In reply to Carlos Soriano from comment #16) > (In reply to Michael Biebl from comment #13) > > (In reply to Carlos Soriano from comment #12) > > > > > In case you only want part of it, you can still install those parts (the > > > gnome-shell extensions). > > > > > > So I'm marking as WONTFIX since you are able to install and use parts of the > > > classic desktop separately, instead of adding settings for all of its parts. > > > > Hm, can you tell me how I can disable icons on a desktop as regular user? > > You mean using classic mode? It's not possible, classic mode is intended to > use as it was gnome 2, including desktop icons and all of those gnome-shell > extensions. Well, GNOME 2 did show desktop icons by default, but it had a gconf key /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop where you could turn that off. That's basically what I'm asking for. Show desktop icons by default in GNOME Classic mode, but provide a gsettings key to turn that off. > You mean you want a custom mix between classic mode and not classic? Hm no, that's not what I meant. I think jbicha's idea is the right one. Since we want different defaults for show-desktop-icons, we'd need two different gsettings keys with different defaults. The show-desktop-icons-classic key would only be read when nautilus-desktop is started in classic mode
I guess that would be fine, I was wrong we need to return back the complex logic we had. But honestly I have not much interest on this, and not sure the code would look neat, I guess worth a try for those interested in this.
This can be easily solved once the per-session overrides feature lands in glib2.0.
This one is "fixed" now :) https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/nautilus/issues/158