23 Sep
2010
23 Sep
'10
5:40 p.m.
On Thu, 2010-09-23 at 12:19 -0500, Timothy Pearson wrote:
On my laptops Lenny install I have icons, webcam, documents, home, system and
trash, all those icons belong to "user: jimmy", "group:
users", this has nothing to do with device icons, the Trinity Squeeze
system says all the icons belong to root and that is the problem.
I think the technology is sound but the user experience is probably
non-intuitive. I thought about capturing the delete and turning it into
a disable but that would leave the user ignorant of how to restore it.
I wonder if there should be a context menu item for "Configure Desktop
Icons" which would point to Device Icons. I also assume it is all
configurable via rc files in Kiosk mode.
Perhaps the menu item should be "Enable/Disable Desktop Icons" or we may
simply make it pertain to the specific icon and have a "Hide This Icon"
context menu item. That would still leave users ignorant of how to
restore it but would probably be the most intuitive. Just my two cents
- John
Timothy
Pearson wrote:
>> Also on the Squeeze install all the icons on the desktop belong to root?
>> Including trash and my documents, a strange "konqueror web browser"
icon
>> is on the desktop belonging to root and I can not put it in the trash or
>> delete it, this is definitely not a "point-n-click" system.
>>
>
> I was not sure if those icons should be included by default on Debian;
they
can be removed easily enough through the use of Configure
> Desktop->Behavior->Device Icons.
Simply deselect the icons you don't want
> to see and they will magically disappear. This feature is similar to the
> old Microsoft system icons system; you cannot delete as you would other
icons
because they are part of the desktop itself.
Even your Trinity on Ubuntu says the icons on the desktop belong to me
"user:
jimmy, group: jimmy" I can add and remove what I want.
You can remove those icons from within the "Device Icons" page. The
reasoning behind making them root owned (and therefore impossible to
delete from the desktop through "normal" means) is as follows:
OLD WAY: User A decides to remove an icon from the desktop. He or she
deletes said icon through the delete key and empties the trash bin. User A
later on decides that he or she wants the icon back. Since it has been
deleted, the only obvious way to get it back is to create a new profile
from scratch (most people don't know about /etc/skel). This is not
exactly user-friendly!
OLD WAY: Developer A notices that one of the icons is broken on some
systems, so he decides to change the .desktop file responsible for the
icon. However, there is no way to propagate the change to existing user
profiles, as /etc/skel is only copied on first login. Therefore, the
developer has to instruct people to recreate their profiles, or copy a
file from /etc/skel and change permissions on it. This is not user or
developer friendly, and acts to make Trinity less accessible to the
average user.
NEW WAY: User B deactivates the icon through "Device Icons". When User B
wants the icon back, it is available in "Device Icons" and can be
reenabled with a few mouse clicks.
Developer B propagates a .desktop file changes to the system directory
where the icons are stored. All users receive the updated icon .desktop
file transparently.
What I can do is to change the default under Debian to not show the icons
by default, however I would like some input from the other Debian users on
this list as well. Thoughts?
Tim