Using the Desktop as a Place to Store Files in KDE4 [Was: Re: Concluding the discussion about splitting kdebase]

[Gary L. Greene Jr.]

On Friday 19 May 2006 02:50 pm, Sébastien Laoût wrote:
> Le Vendredi 19 Mai 2006 18:18, Aaron J. Seigo a écrit :
> > this is something i've been see-sawing back and forth on for some time.
> > i'm really tempted to say that this is a very broken way of working that
> > should be actively discouraged.
>
> Discouraged, perhapse. But "actively"... hum...
> I have faith in you, so I won't oppose blindly to the idea.
> In theory it is good.
>
> And it will remove the novice user question : "On the desktop I clicked
> Personnal Folder, and then I see the Desktop in the personnal folder, and
> then I see the Personnal Folder in the Desktop...".
> That concept is very broken.
>
> Today I encountered a new use case of "using the desktop as a temporary
> place to store things".
>
> I should create an OpenOffice.org document to send by email.
> Naturaly, I save it on the desktop : Ctrl+S -> Desktop -> Choose name ->
> OK. Once it is sent to the destinataire, I deleted the document.
> How should I do in KDE 4?
> Tag the file? Mouais... In OpenOffice.org? Let's forget!
>
> The "tag for important data" concept is a very nice idea.
> But if it is temporary data, where should it be saved before appearing on
> the desktop?
> I mean, a file have to exists somewhere to be tagged "Important" and appear
> on the desktop.
> If I'm saving the file I should save it somewhere (let's go to ~/tmp or
> ~/Unordered Stuff) and then tag it as important.
> That's two actions to do instead of one.
>
> > i really do have faith that if we drop what is a poor hack-of-a-solution
> > we'll come up with clever means to truly address the real use cases. =)
>
> Yes, what about this one, then? ;-)
>
> > oh god no. windows' desktop absolutely offends my sensibilities while
> > ours simply annoys me ;)
>
> And what do you think about the Mac OS X Finder methaphor? ;-)
> It basically show several "root" for exploration:
> - Desktop
> - Home Folder
> - CD-ROM
> - USB Pen
> - External Hard Drive
> - Saved Searches
> - Trashbin
> - FTP Sites
> - File System
>
> The finder have two columns: one with the "virtual roots" / "virtual start
> of navigation" and clicking one of those roots only allow to browse in the
> sub-directories of that virtual root.
>
> This is much better than Windows, and it makes sense.
> It also solve the "recursive Desktop <-> Home self-contained".
> When I'm plugging a USB Pen it's to find a file on that pen, so in my mind,
> the USB pen is one starting point to find something else. I don't even want
> to worry about where the USB Pen is.
> The user have the / filesystem hidden, he can choose to browse only things
> that are relevant for him.

No, this is NOT solved in OS X as I STILL have a desktop folder in my OS X 
home dir, which is used.... surprise, surprise, by finder to show the desktop 
as finder does much the same as what kdesktop/konqueror does.