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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.

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.

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