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I'm pretty sure that e-devel is a public list, so no pricacy harmed there. His email is another issue, but I don't think spambots will implement OCR anytime soon. Maybe he is related to the Mirc-developer?

Anyway, back on track, its allways nice to see a new feature in E17. Is there any desktop left without icons these days? KDE, Gnome, XFCE, E17. They all have it.

There are actually several window managers that do not have desktop icons. Fluxbox, OpenBox, DWM...

I currently use DWM and for "minimalist" users, this is just perfect.

Check it out: http://www.suckless.org/wiki/dwm

Hey, notice that E17 does support "animated icons" (edje files that happen to be icons)

Yeah it's amazing, you got icons on desktop in 2007...

That's exactly what I was thinking. E17 development is so slow, it's now going in reverse!

Actually, with icons on the desktop being so inefficient to work with, it's no surprise that it was somewhere at the bottom of the priority list.

Besides, there are already several other programs which offer these icons, independent of the window manager one uses. With these already around, the only reasons why somebody might want to implement such a feature in a window manager would be:

* in order to have them more closely integrated with the environment (see the case of Gnome -- okay, Gnome is not a window manager -- but you can already get the point, i.e. you can have emblems, modify permissions, write notes and/or comments regarding that program, in order to be used for accessibility reasons etc.)

* in order to implement features which are so non-standard that there would be no reason to implement them outside the window manager in question. Things like this include stuff like animated icons, icons that wobble when you move your mouse over them and so on -- things nobody but the e17 developers would want to write and nobody but e17 users would want to have.

Either way, it's not a question of e17 being developed slowly which can be proven by the fact that icons have appeared on the desktop in 2007. They should have been long gone from the desktop for several years now.

Even XFCE didn't get icons on the desktop till the newest 4.4 series.

The XFCE developers actually didn't want to have icons on the desktop (it's a usability issue). They did cave in after so many request for this "feature". I suspect that this is happening to the E17 project too.

People only want icons on the desktop b/c they come from the Windows-land. If you really think about it - you have to minimize most of your current windows before you can get to the icons - that's really an interruption of workflow.

"People only want icons on the desktop b/c they come from the Windows-land. If you really think about it - you have to minimize most of your current windows before you can get to the icons - that's really an interruption of workflow."

I admit, I've been a Windows user since '97 (started with Win95, of course), so I do like icons. In the past my desktop has become a usability nightmare, though in more recent years I only have the programs I most often use on it, and arranged in a certain way. With a high enough resolution (1600x1200 in my case) and well-placed icons, however, the icons rarely get covered. Each window normally saves its position on the screen, and tends to re-open where it last was.

Still, I've been using Linux (Zenwalk) almost exclusively for probably around a year or more, and tend to prefer an icon-free desktop now, preferring a simple right-click anywhere or the bottom icon panel. Icons on the desktop aren't exactly "bad," and sometimes can be useful (I still like them on some environments). One thing's for sure: I would never use a Windows machine without My Computer and the Recycle Bin on the desktop.

Windows' biggest problem with desktop icons is the fact that practically every program... even system maintenance tools like disk defragmenters and disk cleanup tools (like CCleaner) install an icon to the desktop by default. That, I hate.

Even Windows by default doesn't cover your desktop with icons anymore. Apparently there are still a lot of people out there that only use one application at a time, then close it, and click on another icon on the desktop to start the next application.

No. I want icons on the desktop because otherwise it's a screen sized surface with zero functionality. As for interruption of workflow, I disagree too: with Exposé (or the Linux equivalent of it), a simple flick of the mouse shows me the desktop and I can even do so in the middle of a drag.

No. I want icons on the desktop because otherwise it's a screen sized surface with zero functionality

So why just not to start some useful applications to cover that "useless" surface?
I prefer fullscreen apps (on 21") and do not use the desktop at all.

And with Expose, you can actually double-click on one of those icons? I was under the impression that this would get you "away" from the window selecting mode, let alone the fact that with more than five or six windows around, you don't see a thing.

Needless to say, everyone has their own option on how they use their desktops. Most of those who are used to traditional Unix desktops don't carry anything on their desktop, because I prefer to have the entire screen available.

The bottom line is, though, that most Linux users who do not use KDE or Gnome (i.e. most of those who are not recently converted Windows users) do not use icons -- which is why they were at the bottom of the priorities.

I find that highly amusing, since I remember Mac advocates crying foul when Win95 was released - because it incorporated the same "desktop-as-a-folder" metaphor which had been present since at least MacOS 7.x (if not earlier).



I've never found that particularly problematic. In Windows, there's the "show desktop" icon in quicklaunch, or the Winkey-D keyboard command. And in any desktop system that has built-in support for virtual workspaces, you can simply switch to a workspace that doesn't contain any open applications. And that's not even considering things like Expose in OS X.

Yeah it's amazing, you got icons on desktop in 2007...

I would also like to add, welcome to the year 1987. "The Apple Macintosh uses icons and a desktop metaphor to increase ease of use..."

XFCE ran into the same problem. Everyone wanted desktop icons and now they are there. I think desktop icons work for people since it gives them a comfortable feeling of being unrestricted at placing files. It is not really rational since one could easily maximize Thunar or another file manager and get even better efficiency at managing files. A lot of user interface work is like this it is a combination of function and how it feels to a user that makes it appealing. Another example of this principle is the Firefox Search box. People asked for it and love it. The Mozilla developers were against it since in the older Mozilla suite one can just press the down arrow on the location bar and get a mini search menu. Efficient but too abstract for the casual user. People wanted the box and they got the box.

Edited 2007-05-16 18:41

A lot of user interface work is like this it is a combination of function and how it feels to a user that makes it appealing.

And it's also basic usability theory. The UI aspect is called affordance. A good UI design leverage affordance to make it's use apparent to the user.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance

Evolution = Gnome Outlook clone, E = Enlightenment.

E basically started because the lead developer (Rasterman) didn't like (and still doesn't like) the way things are going in linux desktop development.

if you used e17 - you will notice it has had a "files" menu for a long time - this has been the only way to get to the filemanager. i have been busy fixing the fm to work in list-view mode (as it's used for the file selector, wallpaper browser, theme selector etc.). i recently worked on icon view mode that allowed arbitrary placement of icons - adding them to the desktop was incredibly trivial - just stick the fm widget on the desktop. that's all that was needed.

icons were added because of overwhelming demand for them from users. they keep asking - so we have delivered. we have delivered in such a way that we 100% recycle the same code and technology for widgets, etc. etc.

yes it may be more usable for heavy users if the files are stuck somewhere on a "sidebar" or "panel" or "shelf" - we have had that in the ibar launcher for years already. it has been configurable by drag and drop for years. the icon-view mode for the filemanager is new. don't like it? delete the icons. point is that the same code can power MANY uses of icons. This is simply the *MOST REQUESTED* use of them. take the feature or leave it - but it's there because people asked for it - a LOT of them.

Except for the Home-Folders thing (I think file systems are horrible user interfaces, maybe they are useful as APIs, but not as UIs) I agree with you. My current desktop has a few important folders lined up at the edge of my screen to get a somewhat similar experience. But I gladly change them so that

1. They are tabs at the edge. Resembling menus that are available even if a window happens to be placed at the edge of the screen.
2. They would expand and let me traverse subdirs without clicking so that I can drag-and-drop stuff to them.

>> When is Linux going to get some readable fonts?
It is up to user to grab some windows fonts :o)

maybe it has nothing to do with linux and the fact that a user has gone and chosen such a font all for themselves using configuration dialogs? because that sure is NOT the default. the default is in fact the same font you see in firefox. maybe you should not judge everything by a screenshot?

you might find this interesting: http://www.press.redhat.com/2007/05/09/liberation-fonts/ :-)

Ugh, but isn't that the evil Redhat company? What, they contribute free stuff all the time to linux distros? (sarcasm) For being big and evil they sure do help out a lot. ;-)

the fm is one of the last major things left in the TODO. the "install wizard" (first-run wizard) is probably the last (something to help set e17 up for you quickly and guide you to a nice sane out-of-the-box config. We have lots of polishing, cleaning etc. to do. the fm is not "done", just beginning to work. There's a lot of config possible that is simply hidden right now.

And now return all of them back the way they were, and find the program you just opened.

I just have a toolbar with all the applications I regularly use right there, so I don't even HAVE to click the 'show desktop' button.

Even as someone else pointed out I wouldn't have to keep licking my screen if I used Beryl or some such window manager. Unfortunately, ATI binary drivers lick goat, so I can't.

Edited 2007-05-16 19:23