Re: Major change in desktop handling

[Sebastian Rittau <srittau jroger in-berlin de>]

On Fri, May 16, 2003 at 10:05:45AM -0400, Alan Cox wrote:

> If Nautilus is going to check a Gconf key then it should check whether they
> says "no, hidden or Desktop".

I would actually recommend using a GConf key that specifies the location
of the desktop directory and defaults to ~/Desktop (but please honor
i18n). This way, everybody is happy: The default directory is ~/Desktop,
power users can reconfigure it to be ~/.desktop, $HOME, or whatever they
like.

Messing with the user's home directory is like your electricity provider
telling you that the new fuse box has to be put in the middle of your
living room. I already have a struture in my home directory that suits
me. Why should I be forced to adapt to a new scheme, introducing an
extra level of depth? Basically I'm told that I either have to perform a
"mv $HOME/* $HOME/Desktop" or just ignore the new Desktop directory in
my home.

The HIG has a nice section where it is explained that the user should
always have the feeling that (s)he is in control. Putting random stuff
in my home directory (which is *my* desktop) does not give me that
feeling.

 - Sebastian, who usually does not rant like this