That’s absolutely horrible. 
If I want it to work like Mac & Windows, what should I file a bug report against… Ubuntu-Mate, Mate-Desktop, Ubuntu, or Firefox?
I really can’t tell if you are joking. If you are joking, ignore the rest of this post. If you are not joking, then please do read on.
No it’s not horrible nor is it a bug, It’s how it is done in many Linux distros, through I am sure there are other ways. If you want it to work precisely like Mac or Windows, you might want to make it precisely clear in your question that is what you want. Alternatively, if you really must have it precisely like Mac or Windows, I am bound to ask why aren’t you using Mac or Windows?
1 Like
Only half-joking, and no offense was intended. From a user-interface design perspective, this behavior is remarkably primitive. From the end user’s perspective, the workaround represents an unreasonable amount of effort. The question considers the possibility that the end user could modify something which would enable drag & drop functionality. I’m not really sure how I could have made this any clearer: I asked for a fix and you gave a manual workaround that must be performed every time. So you technically failed to answer the question, and then you accused me of not being clear about what I wanted.
[quote=“why aren’t you using Mac or Windows?”][/quote]
Alas, Linux developers are the only ones who demand that we justify our use of their creations! Is open source not enough? Although it sometimes seems to be unwanted, I would like to get some developers funded. But appeals for financing would be more successful if certain obvious things would be fixed that represent a de facto standard. So I use my friends and relations as a test case: when they call my attention to an issue which substantially affects their workflow, I check to see if there is a solution, and if I do not find anything, I file a bug report. Therefore the question is literal: if this problem is ever going to be fixed, who would be responsible for the code base that needs to be modified? Once again, you did not answer a question which was stated as clearly and concisely as possible, because you were too busy being offended.
I would also like to point out that suggestions to improve the user interface are welcomed and accepted on repository hosting sites where the OS and the app are developed. If you were in charge of those sites, I rather suspect that every feature request would be met with the reply: “just stop using Linux and go away.”
When you further implied that this dysfunctional behavior is deliberate, I think it is you that must be joking: if the capability to save as HTML is already built into the menu, why would you duplicate it through drag & drop, leaving the user with no simple method to create a shortcut? Wouldn’t you be incredulous if you found a radio which required a half-dozen actions to power-on, instead of one? Well it’s the same thing here: it does not work the way the user expects, for no apparent reason, and you say that’s intentional. You have got to be kidding me! If this is deliberate, it would be polite to let the user know before they have made a commitment to the OS.
I think we have encountered a difference in core philosophy here; as the fictional Sheldon Cooper says: “I don’t like this, it’s too user friendly.” Fortunately most developers don’t seem to share your opinion that feature requests are unwelcome: if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. So please bear in mind that the ego and the OS are two different things, and suggestions for improvement are not personal insults. However, if the developers of Ubuntu Mate agree that this kind of functionality does not belong in the OS, I sincerely would like to hear the rationale behind it, for I do not want to file bug reports which are unwelcome. In this case I beg your permission to modify the question as follows:
Do any Linux distros support the functionality which I described, and if so, which ones?
Let me be clear that I am not joking here: I think this discussion is extremely worthwhile if it serves to clarify which bugs the developers have no intention of fixing. If I can create a comparison chart that will plainly illustrate the difference between distros from the typical end-user’s perspective, that will be extraordinarily helpful to people who are trying to make a decision about which distro to install.
1 Like
Let me be clear. You came on here and asked how a desktop short-cut to a website may be made. I immediately replied with a commonly used method, but also indicated that there are several other that are used in Linux.
Your reply has been to inform me how "horrible" this method is and how you consider it a "bug". If you went into someone else's house and asked to use their facilities and were duly allowed to use them free of charge, how do you suppose they might react if you then told them how horrible their facilities were and that you intended to report them as faulty.
What exactly did you expect? Linux is largely produced by volunteers who spend uncountable hours of their lives making the various distro for people like you to use entirely freely. Not to mention the voluminous open source world of software that can also be be used freely on these distros. I am bound to tell you, it is your attitude that need addressing here. You need to have a long think about how you have approached this board because it is not good. Linux forums are frequented by all types of regular users, developers and the like with all types of personality to boot. Some are good communicators, some are good coders, some are good on the arts side of things. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. However, a common feature of this community is the principle that software should be free for all at the point of need and should be developed with that in mind at all times. This collegiate environment is entirely conducive to constructive criticism and requests for user features. What it is not conducive to is the kind of "customer" rudeness one might expect to have to put up with in a commercial environment and I think it is specifically in this regard where your confusion has arisen.
Finally, as I said, there are other methods of saving a web-page to a desktop and I am going to take the time to explain the following one, which more closely matches your requirements. I am doing this because this is what people on here do. They try to help others.
Open a webpage
At the address bar, you will see a "favicon", This is a very small icon at the far left of an address bar. Sometimes it is a little globe, sometimes a small padlock, sometime something else. See below:
Left click on the favicon and, whilst holding down the left mouse button, drag it to your desktop. That's it, you now have a link to the page. I have just tested this on Ubuntu mate 14.04 and it works.
However, it is also entirely possible that there may be certain instances where the above might not work. Indeed, your first post indicates this. In which case, the method I initially mentioned works every time. Additionally,there may be other users who know of other methods that I am not aware of.
Now, I am going to assume here that you may well consider the above an unacceptable lack of quality control. Perhaps, even, a "horrible bug". But, that is because you fundamentally misunderstand how open source works. Open source is, to repeat myself here, done by volunteers who do it for the sake of their fellows. They don't do it for profit. This means, inevitably, Linux is always going to have the occasional issue around the edges. But this is a small price many of us consider worth paying. Especially so, given that the flip side of such an open-ended development process is that Linux is endlessly customisable. And, of course, there is an alternative for those who find the above unacceptable. It's called Microsoft and Apple et al. Just as long as one does not mind their suffocating embrace where customisability is much reduced or, where it is possible, is always on the basis of commercial constraints that may or may not be in the interests of the specific end user. Where every transaction one makes is tracked and traced in order to compartmentalise one as a consumer to be milked with targeted ads at every turn. Or, worse, to have one's every move online surveilled by organisations like the NSA courtesy of the back-door left open by Microsoft.
Of course, the one big advantage of paying for such services is that one can be as obnoxious and bombastic as one likes with representatives of, say, Microsoft and they will duly suck it up because their profits depend on it. This is not how it works with Linux. If one wants people to treat the words one posts with respect in the Linux community, one must do likewise.
Right, that's my rant over with and I hope you fully understand my position now. And, having said all of the above, I am more than prepared to accept your initial response was based on the misunderstandings about open source I mentioned previously. Furthermore, your suggested intention to make a comparison chart sounds like a capital idea and I urge you to produce it and post it on here,
2 Likes
@um88 I am not a developer, coder or even a terminal user. But let me just say that your original question and response towards the honest answer was pretty much stupid, arrogant and childish. What you asked equated to asking if you can mow a lawn with a car and the answer was yes you can and here is how to do it, Then you (and many other people do this as well) get upset when said car does not mow the lawn as easy or as efficiently as a lawn tractor.
If you want or like how an operating system works use it. Dont use something different and call it a “bug” when it doesnt work the same as Windows and Mac. It’s not a bug it’s just a different operating system. If you dont like it dont use it or even better, work to change it. Besides, what if the way Windows and Mac do it are the “bugs”? They are different than what I am used to. I cant stand the way windows UI is and Mac just looks like Gnome Shell anymore. They are the ones that are the bugs because you can only do what they say you can do in those operating systems.
As far as I know not many Linux users dont use desktop shortcuts so you acting like it is a major problem doesnt really exist that I know of. I used to be on Windows about 5 years ago and had my desktop covered in shortcuts. But since I switched to a desktop that looks great and functions more efficiently than that windows crap I have grown to hate desktop shortcuts. They just look ugly as hell and totally screws up a perfectly good workflow and covers up some of the most beautiful wallpapers ever created.
1 Like
This collegiate environment is entirely conducive to constructive criticism and requests for user features. What it is not conducive to is the kind of “customer” rudeness one might expect to have to put up with in a commercial environment.
Here you are trying to imply that it is not constructive for anyone to speak candidly on behalf of the typical end user. You comically over-reacted to the way that my follow up question was phrased, and falsely accused me of not being clear in the original question (which you neglected to answer.) Now you falsely accuse me of being deliberately rude.
Your entire argument seems to be predicated on the fact that you were offended by a humorous application of the word “horrible.” The error I made was in assuming that it would be understood in this context to mean the typical user finds this behavior of Ubuntu Mate intolerable, and would choose a different distro on that basis alone. It is a simple statement of fact, and I think a reasonable person would want to understand this. But even after I tried my level best to explain that in greater detail, you still insist upon taking offense where none was intended, and you want to convert the discussion into a debate about who is justified in using Linux. From my perspective, you are just trying to change the subject:
You seem to be particularly upset that I did not accept the workaround as a realistic solution, and pressed for a clarification of the alternatives. Here again you have neglected to answer a simple, direct and sincere question because you want to discuss something else. So I still don’t know who is ultimately responsible for this dysfunctional behavior in Ubuntu Mate, and whether it is truly deliberate. In other words, if it was fixed in Ubuntu or Mate-Desktop, would the developers of Ubuntu Mate revert the change? I think that is an entirely reasonable question, and it’s only rude if you want it to be. And this appears to be precisely what you want, because you won’t answer the question.
If you perceive Linux development to be a thankless job, then you should either stop doing it, or collaborate more closely with people who want to create a system that would make development more rewarding, instead of arguing with the users about whether something is a bug or a feature. And if you are not a developer, I have to question whether you are representing the majority of developers in an accurate manner here. But in either case, it is not necessary for you to agree with my characterization of the issue as a ‘bug’ in order to answer my questions.
Now I understood this forum to be a place for people to ask general questions about the OS. But you just continue to accuse me of being rude or unclear instead of trying to answer those questions. If you would prefer that I do not use Ubuntu Mate, you only need to tell me which Linux distros include the sort of functionality that I described. If you don’t know the answers to any of my questions, would you please just admit this, instead of beating around the bush?
I am doing this because this is what people on here do. They try to help others.
I try to help others too. That is why I provide free technical support for users who are not particularly computer literate, and represent their needs to developers where it is appropriate.
Left click on the favicon and, whilst holding down the left mouse button, drag it to your desktop. That’s it, you now have a link to the page.
Now you are contradicting yourself: in post #2 and #4, you implied that it does not work this way in Ubuntu Mate. You further indicated that this is by design, and vociferously defended that design decision. Now you are claiming the total opposite: you are saying that it actually works the way I wanted on your hardware platform. But you did not clarify the reasons for this discrepancy. So let us return to the beginning here:
We have to establish what is the intended behavior of Ubuntu Mate with regard to this functionality before we can find a solution to the compatibility problem. If you can’t answer my questions, and do not want to help me find a solution, you should not participate in this discussion. Your talent for debate and the general philosophy of open source is not the issue here: the topic is how to fix drag & drop shortcuts on a platform where it doesn’t work. If you don’t know how to fix this, just let it go and move on to something else.
it is also entirely possible that there may be certain instances where the above might not work.
And if it does not work, what actions would the user need to take to correct the dysfunctional behavior? That was the gist of my original question, and everything else you have raised is off-point.
Linux is always going to have the occasional issue around the edges.
That is implicitly understood. But since this is a technical support forum, I was looking for someone who could assist me in solving the problem. Clearly you are not that person. If you don’t know the cause or the solution, you have no justification to take offense when you are not praised and thanked for providing off-point answers. If I have made a mistake, and posted in the wrong forum, please direct me to the one where my question is most appropriate.
And, of course, there is an alternative for those who find the above unacceptable. It’s called Microsoft and Apple et al.
Why do you persist in trying to turn a simple question about how to fix broken desktop shortcuts into a debate about Windows versus Linux? If my platform does not conform to the intended behavior, why do you not regard that as a bug? I refer you here to a survey in this community which attempts to assess whether Ubuntu Mate is performing as designed on various hardware platforms:
Hardware compatibility template - Laptops
Hardware compatibility template - Desktops
Again I assert that if you were in charge, surveys like this would be replaced with the admonition to “take it or leave it” instead of providing constructive feedback to the developers.
Furthermore, your suggested intention to make a comparison chart sounds like a capital idea and I urge you to produce it and post it on here
I would be pleased to do so, but I am unable to complete the task if I cannot obtain a clarification regarding the intended behavior of the OS, and cannot determine who is responsible for fixing bugs in cases where a supported hardware platform does not conform to that behavior.
I am not a developer, coder or even a terminal user.
Thank you for clarifying that you do not speak for developers here (or even for power users.) But I would very much like to know what the majority of developers think about this issue.
But let me just say that your original question and response towards the honest answer was pretty much stupid, arrogant and childish.
I support your right to express that opinion, but it is still just another opinion (and a fairly hypocritical one at that.) However, I am less concerned with opinions here than I am with facts, like: “What is the design goal of Ubuntu Mate with regard to this type of functionality?”
My original reply to Steven was intended to inject some levity into a situation where the question was not answered: I did not request a manual workaround, I asked for a way to fix the problem. Honest though it may be, his reply did not attempt to answer the question. So my own reply was equally honest when I indicated that I was seeking a permanent fix, not a manual workaround.
What you asked equated to asking if you can mow a lawn with a car and the answer was yes you can and here is how to do it
This comparison is at best irrational, and at worst completely dishonest, because the functionality which I described is a de facto standard in user-interface design, not something bizarre and unusual, like “mowing a lawn with a car.” The manual workaround that Steve provided fits your analogy better: it is what programmers would describe as a “kludge.”
Then you (and many other people do this as well) get upset when said car does not mow the lawn as easy or as efficiently as a lawn tractor.
I am not upset. I merely want to know how to fix the problem. And if it cannot be fixed, I want to know which distro supports the functionality that I described. What part of this do you not understand?
Dont use something different and call it a “bug” when it doesnt work the same as Windows and Mac.
But Steve just said that it works the way I expected, using Ubuntu Mate on his hardware platform. Did you not even bother to read this? If it does not work the same way on all supported platforms, how is that not a bug? Just like him, it seems that you only want to argue about how you think it should work. If you want to debate that, start your own thread. The subject of this one is how to fix the problem. If you think that users should not be allowed to call this a bug, perhaps you should express that opinion here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox-3.5/+bug/475587
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/194191
It’s not a bug it’s just a different operating system. If you dont like it dont use it or even better, work to change it.
What in the world did you think I am trying to do here? How does anything “change” if people do not communicate the existence of a problem to those who have the power to do something about it?
Besides, what if the way Windows and Mac do it are the “bugs”?
If you cannot tell me what the intended behavior of Ubuntu Mate is with regard to this issue, the question is irrelevant.
I cant stand the way windows UI is and Mac just looks like Gnome Shell anymore. They are the ones that are the bugs because you can only do what they say you can do in those operating systems.
And what do “they” say you can do with Ubuntu Mate?
As far as I know not many Linux users dont use desktop shortcuts
Precisely. The number of people who don’t use desktop shortcuts are in the minority. That is why I call the feature a “de facto standard.”
so you acting like it is a major problem doesnt really exist that I know of.
This is just incoherent: the purpose of a tech support forum is not to determine what is a “major problem.” It is a place to solve problems, regardless of how major or minor they happen to be (in your subjective opinion.) When a professor is writing a book that involves hundreds of references which need to be independently verified, the lack of drag & drop functionality could be a tremendous hinderance to their workflow.
I used to be on Windows about 5 years ago and had my desktop covered in shortcuts. But since I switched to a desktop that looks great and functions more efficiently than that windows crap I have grown to hate desktop shortcuts.
That is completely irrelevant here. The topic is how to enable the feature on those platforms where it is broken. It is not a question of whether ‘UnkleBonehead’ likes and uses this feature.
I am only trying to determine what is the intended behavior of Ubuntu Mate, and why it works differently on my platform than it does on Steven’s. I did not intend to offend anyone, and if you are determined to be offended, there is nothing I can do about it. No one is forcing you guys to help me solve this problem. If you do not possess the knowledge to assist me, don’t sit here and debate other issues, please just start a new topic where you can argue about this amongst yourselves while I continue to work on solving the problem until someone else recommends another distro (if necessary.)
@um88 I see what you are doing here. You are confusing some terminology (apparently on purpose) that even I can understand.
A “platform” is not a computer. That is hardware. A “platform” would be windows, mac and linux and the systems that make up those platforms should work the same on all hardware. Some hardware is not compatible with some platforms. This is what would be called a bug. The way the system that works within its own platform is not the bug.
Besides, you worded it as a question and found offence in the answer when it wasnt what you expected or rather wanted.
You sound more like a troll than someone that is genuinely wanting to discuss how to change a system with in platform.
If you were sincere in getting a conversation started on how to change the situation you should have worded as a query and not an all out attack. I quote my father here “Show some respect and you get double back.” Words to live by in my opinion.
I added breaks so you can more easily use my statements in the quotes when you want to try to pick my analogy apart. 
Again what you are griping about is the same equivalent. Something does the same thing but has a different way of doing it.
Do you get upset when you go to McDonalds and order a hamburger that is fried on the grill when what you want is one cooked in a broiler at Burger King?
It’s still a hamburger, still tastes like cardboard, still clogs your arteries and makes you fat, but is it a bug that it is cooked on the grill and not a broiler?
I see what you are doing here. You are confusing some terminology (apparently on purpose) that even I can understand.
That’s just more hypocrisy, and I will demonstrate why below.
A “platform” is not a computer… A “platform” would be windows, mac and linux
You are absolutely incorrect; the word applies to both. Now you are attempting to re-write the dictionary:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/platform?s=t
You are the one who is “purposely confusing terminology” here, because you want to obfuscate the issue. The issue is how Ubuntu Mate was designed to work, and why it works differently on two different machines. You are just trying to change the subject so that you can continue this off-topic debate. The topic is not the definition of the word “platform,” it is how to solve the problem of enabling drag & drop functionality in Ubuntu Mate. If anyone is being “childish” here, it is you. If you do not want to contribute anything to the solution, and you only want to debate other issues for the sake of aggravating people, that is the definition of “trolling.”
Besides, you worded it as a question and found offence in the answer when it wasnt what you expected or rather wanted.
I have been as clear as humanly possible about what I want and expect. You simply lack the capacity to answer my technical questions, but still you insist on trying to debate everything else.
You sound more like a troll than someone that is genuinely wanting to discuss how to change a system with in platform.
Again this is a monstrous hypocrisy. If you cannot contribute anything which leads to a solution of the problem, do not post in this thread.
If you were sincere in getting a conversation started on how to change the situation you should have worded as a query and not an all out attack.
Go back and read the original post. You chose to perceive it as an “all out attack” because you wanted to have a debate about Linux versus Windows. But I did not mention Mac and Windows because I wanted to have a debate about which is the better OS: I mentioned it only for the sake of demonstrating that Mozilla intended to implement the drag & drop URL feature as a cross-platform standard. If this does not work consistently on Ubuntu Mate, it raises a completely legitimate question of who is responsible for that, and how the end user might fix this in cases where it does not work.
I quote my father here “Show some respect and you get double back.” Words to live by in my opinion.
Respect is something which has to be earned, and you are not trying to do that. I don’t care whether you respect me, I simply requested a solution to a technical problem from anyone who cares to contribute a relevant answer. I would welcome as many insults as you care to dish out, if they were accompanied by something of technical merit which relates to the topic.
I added breaks so you can more easily use my statements in the quotes when you want to try to pick my analogy apart. grinning
Because you are a troll who wants to debate off-topic issues. If that was not the case, you would not continue to post in this thread.
Again what you are griping about is the same equivalent. Something does the same thing but has a different way of doing it.
Why don’t you go through every post on this forum and label every technical question as a “gripe.”
Do you get upset when you go to McDonalds and order a hamburger that is fried on the grill when what you want is one cooked in a broiler at Burger King? It’s still a hamburger, still tastes like cardboard, still clogs your arteries and makes you fat, but is it a bug that it is cooked on the grill and not a broiler?
Again with the hypocrisy: that is the definition of trolling. You cannot get any further off topic. I know what you are doing here: you want to fill up this thread with so much off-topic garbage that no one answers the technical questions which I have posed, just because it satisfies you to frustrate me. But even if you are allowed to pollute a thread with pages of material which are completely off-topic, the way that the moderators handle this kind of trolling will help me decide whether I want to continue using and recommending this distro.
hi, what version of Ubuntu MATE and Firefox are you using?
Ubuntu 15.04 and FF 37.0.2
Did you upgrade from a previous version?
Yes, but it did not work prior to the upgrade.
I’m running 15.04 and can’t duplicate the dragging of the favicon in the URL bar issue that you report. (It is working for me - I tried google.com - I have seen where certain websites still save as a webpage
Now we are making some progress. I can confirm the issue which you describe here: it does indeed work differently depending on the web site!
but I may have had Ubuntu firefox modifications pack disabled. Can’t provide an example at the moment)
I’m pretty sure that I did not disable this feature at any time. As an example, it did not work on Wikipedia. But since you mentioned that the behavior was inconsistent, I tried it a second time and it worked on the same site! However, the title of the shortcut is prefixed by the words “Link to” in those cases where it works as expected.
I think it is safe to say that Mozilla intends for favicons/shortcuts to be dragged to the desktop
Yes, yes, I would agree. This is very encouraging because it implies the possibility of a permanent fix. It just does not work consistently everywhere yet, and it is not clear to me whether the desktop environment is a contributing factor. But there obviously is a bug in something, despite what the trolls have been saying. I was just trying to determine what to file a bug report against. These are the variations which I have encountered so far:
- An error message is displayed in a pop-up window
- The page is saved as an HTML file
- A valid shortcut is generated on the desktop
- Nothing occurs at all the first time the link is dragged to a folder on the desktop, but a valid link is produced on the second attempt if a link is saved to the desktop first
- Nothing occurs, period
At times I believe I have also seen a lock, a question mark, or a plus sign on the cursor. It might be helpful to determine if this issue occurs with the same version of Firefox on other distros. It would also be productive if people who think that it works in Ubuntu Mate could test it a little bit more to make sure it works consistently on every web site.
Good work Gravy45. I can confirm that works on five sites I have just tested it on.
No I don’t want to fill up the thread. I only wanted to point out the additude you took and the way it was perceived. There fore I am bowing out of this conversation for the betterment of the discussion.
Have a good day and try to not be too snarky.
[quote=“UnkleBonehead, post:16, topic:1180”]
I only wanted to point out the additude you took[/quote]
You did a lot more than that.
Have a good day and try to not be too snarky.
I have already explained that the word “horrible” was intended as a humorous response to an inappropriate reply which essentially said I should tolerate the problem because it is “not a bug.” Then you jumped in and proceeded to argue the same thing profusely:
You vociferously insisted that this is “not a bug” without even trying to reproduce the behavior which I described, because you think that shortcuts look “ugly as hell,” and nobody really needs a feature that ‘UnkleBoneHead’ don’t like. And you think that I have a bad attitude?!
What was implied in Steven’s response could easily be interpreted as the first appearance of “snark” in this thread because it did not take my question literally or seriously, and did not address the fundamental issue. This is something which Microsoft employees do all the time: they often provide a canned response which is technically correct but completely irrelevant. What Steven did was copy something he found on the web that describes a complex workaround, and this is not what I asked for. However, I tried to make it clear that I was not angry or even annoyed, I was only surprised and incredulous that he considered this to be a reasonable solution. This is why I used an emoticon to indicate that I did not want him to take the rejection personally.
If I had wanted to be deliberately rude, I would have called him “stupid”, like you did to me. But I don’t think he is stupid, even if he failed to answer the question. I was only disagreeing with his initial characterization of the problem as the behavior which the designers intended, and something we should just accept. There really was no justification for you to jump into this thread purely for the sake of debating a smorgasbord of unrelated issues, as if this was a brawl between football fans who are spoiling for a fight. If everyone else on the forum behaved the same way, problems like this would never be solved, and legitimate bugs would never be properly documented.
The nature of your comments indicate that the strongest objection was to the mention of another OS. If I had not done that, it would probably have been acceptable to use the word “horrible” in a harmless jest. Although I was not trying to advocate the use of another OS, all you could see was another teams livery. From that moment on, you just quit paying attention to what I was trying to communicate about this issue.
If you don’t grok my sense of humor, or just don’t like the way that I pose a question, you can choose not to assist me (and all of the users that I represent.) It was not necessary for you to hijack this thread and turn it into a debate about everything else that you could possibly think of, without contributing one single thing of technical value to the discussion. So I am not being “snarky” when I tell you that I think your attitude is much worse than mine, and you are the one who is too easily “upset”:
You berate and ridicule me for trying to improve the OS by documenting a bug. You declare that I don’t need a feature because you don’t use it yourself. You castigate me for “griping about Linux” as if you own both Linux and this forum. And then you tell me to “have a good day” --along with a parting insult. And you call me insincere?! I don’t expect you to admit you were wrong, but I don’t think you are so stupid that you cannot understand why.
You’ve got a seriously bad attitude mister and that is plain to see. I’m done here. I and others have given you methods for obtaining short-cuts on your desktop. Indeed, the one provided by Gravy45 works perfectly. As I said at the very beginning of this thread, there are numerous ways to perform a given task in Linux. That its strength.
And yet, you are still persisting with this pathetic belligerence.
As I said, I’m done here.
Mods, if you are reading this, I would request that you leave in the relevant posts regarding methods for obtaining short-cuts on the desktop, remove all other extraneous posts, including mine, and then lock this thread.
1 Like
When I try it the normal way (without Shift-CTRL)
First attempt: page saved as HTML document
Second attempt: page saved HTML document
Third attempt: asks if I want to replace the Desktop folder!!
The file save dialog also represents the file as "20 bytes" -- but the size on disk is 149 kb
note: the icon shown on the desktop is a blank page. On some other sites, the icon shown on the desktop has a symbol: </>
For those icons which display this symbol, the actual file type varies when I examine the properties, for example:
** unknown
** HTML document
** JPEG image
With the shift-CTRL method:
First attempt: an (apparently) valid shortcut is created
Second attempt: another shortcut is created with the exact same file name
left-click once on the first shortcut: it asks if I want to replace the file (after it has already saved a duplicate)
Third attempt: another shortcut is created with the same file name as the first two
(In properties dialog, file size is "unknown" for all)
Fourth attempt (this time without shift-CTRL) – prompted to replace original file of 149 kb with a file of 20 bytes. (Is a valid shortcut expected to consume 100+ kb of disk space?)
When replacing the file is approved, the other shortcuts created with the Shift-CTRL method now have valid information in the properties dialog
This is just baffling.
taking into account @UnkleBonehead’s comment about not many Linux users using shortcuts, I guess I could see how someone might want the default to be a file (save as webpage)
I don’t think that he wants to use either one. But I don’t believe that Mozilla intended for drag & drop to save as HTML, because you can already do that through the menu. Where shortcuts are concerned, there is no alternative method: it must be done through drag & drop, and that’s how it works in Firefox on other platforms. But even if raw HTML was the intended behavior, drag & drop does not work the same way every time in Ubuntu Mate:
Sometimes it wants to save a shortcut, and sometimes it wants to save HTML. And sometimes it will tell you that it is doing one thing when it is really doing another. If you are monitoring the size of the files that it creates, and you verify whether the file on disk matches what the Firefox save-dialog says, and you start checking the properties on every file, these discrepancies will become much more obvious. Even in cases where the desktop icon remains consistent, the file type does not.
While the Shift-CTRL method seems to be the most usable workaround, even that is not 100% reliable – but I have never seen a glitch on Mac or Windows. I am not trying to advocate for either of those platforms here, I am just trying to demonstrate that there does not appear to be a bug in Firefox on those platforms, and this information could be valuable to developers who are trying to isolate the cause of the problem in Linux. Sometimes it helps to have a point of reference. I don’t think I have ever seen a bug which consistently produces such erratic and unpredictable results. But this should at least make it easier for developers to observe, because it does not take a long time for some kind of inconsistency to manifest.
No, you are the one with the ‘bad attitude’. You are just furious because I embarrassed you by demonstrating that there really is a bug after you vehemently insisted there was not.
I and others have given you methods for obtaining short-cuts on your desktop. Indeed, the one provided by Gravy45 works perfectly.
Once again you are totally incorrect, sir – and I just provided the proof in the previous post.
As I said at the very beginning of this thread, there are numerous ways to perform a given task in Linux.
But in this particular case, you are using that as an excuse to avoid confronting this bug, because you cannot admit that you were wrong about it.
That its strength.
Only if you consider willful ignorance to be “strength.”
And yet, you are still persisting with this pathetic belligerence.
If stating facts is “belligerent,” guilty as charged.
As I said, I’m done here.
You don’t need my permission to quit.
Mods, if you are reading this, I would request that you leave in the relevant posts regarding methods for obtaining short-cuts on the desktop, remove all other extraneous posts, including mine, and then lock this thread.
While you have behaved somewhat irrationally up to this point, I can definitely understand the logic in this request: the stuff that you wrote is pretty embarrassing after it’s shown to be totally wrong.
@um88 You explicitly ask how to do something in linux EXACTLY like windows and mac. You berate myself and others for asking and suggesting that if you like how those work then use them. Someone suggests a solution for you that was verified to work by others. But because you cant get it to work on your machine you berate them and the solution because you are too arrogant to understand that not all os’ s work on every hardware.
You are the epitome of “operator error” and I so wish someone would have answered your question with RTFM.
I sincerely hope you get banned.
I am removing myself from this conversation again. Please do not tag me in it again.
I also have noticed this behavior since switching to Mate. Only on occasion.
I understand. I cannot reproduce that at the moment. But it was remarkable from the standpoint that the File Manager was trying to replace the Desktop folder instead of saving a link inside the Desktop folder, and that should never be the default action under any circumstances.
It sounds like the webpage was saved complete previously.
I think that's correct: in those tests which involved multiple attempts with both methods, I did not delete the previous items before trying again.
In that case, it sounds right to me that it would ask about replacing it, if it previously existed.
Agreed. But I never saw any prompts to replace a file. It always created duplicates. The one time that it deviated from this behavior, it tried to replace the Desktop folder for this user account, instead of replacing a file on the Desktop.
I have seen the file size represented incorrectly, so definitely suggest reporting it.
Do you think it's a Firefox issue or a File Manager issue? I don't have another distro to test it on right now.
Regarding second attempt: It is creating a link name with the same name, yes, but if you open a terminal and issue the command 'ls', you'll see that it names the actual filenames of the two links with unique names. If you were to create links (symbolic links) of regular files, it does give unique link names. Suggest reporting it.
I do understand that the file names would have to be different within the file system, even if they appear identical on the Desktop. But if you save from another application, the File Manager does not normally allow names which appear identical on the deskop. In that case it would prompt to rename or replace. So is this a bug in Firefox or the File Manager? Are there any distros where this works properly?
Regarding the replace message on second attempt: I can't tell when you are left-clicking on the shortcut, and can't get the replace message.
I cannot consistently reproduce this one, but will try to explain it better: I noticed that the second shortcut had the same title on the Desktop. In Firefox on Mac & Windows, you would either get a different name (appending 1,2,3, etc.) or it would prompt for replacement. So when I saw two shortcuts with the same identical name, I clicked on the first shortcut to select it. (But I now think a single right-click is what triggered this; sorry for the confusion.)
So I right-clicked once and the file replace dialog appeared instead of the context menu. In other words, it appears that a file replace dialog request was lodged in memory, but it was suppressed for some reason, and a duplicate shortcut was created without waiting for the request window to appear. When I right-clicked on the first shortcut, that suppressed 'conflict' dialog suddenly appeared, but it had no relevance in this context because the file with the duplicate name had already been created.
Notes:
-
The title on the desktop is "Link to..." but the replace dialog thinks the file is named "22"
-
There is no file on the Desktop with a visible title of "22"
(In terminal there is a file named "22" of 167kb but the file which represents the desktop shortcut is 263 bytes) -
The icon on the desktop is a blank page, but the replace dialog shows an icon with </>
(I think the correct icon for a shortcut is the favicon with an arrow overlay, or a generic URL icon with arrow overlay)
-
The original file size is 167 kb, and the replacement is
<null>because it was already saved without permission -
The properties dialog says the file size is "unknown" and the type is HTML (but the icon title on the desktop is "Link to..." and terminal says it is a ".desktop" file)
-
If I open a new File Manager window, I can see the contents, but cannot interact with the window while the file replace dialog is open (not sure if this is the expected behavior)
Even where I have a working shortcut, the properties say it's an HTML file, and the icon does not look like a shortcut. It's also missing the option to "open with" anything else (like text editor.) If I drag it into the text editor, it looks like a valid shortcut file. And the icon type specified is "mate-fs-bookmark." Is that icon type supposed to be represented by a blank page? Looks wrong to me.
Now if you have links or files left over from the attempt without shift-ctrl, that might be the cause.
Could be. So maybe the desktop shortcut feature needs to be fixed first, and maybe some of the other problems will go away. In any case, I did find something else worth noting here:
When I attempted to create a shortcut in the normal way, I saw a plus sign on the cursor momentarily. And then it changed to a question mark. On every subsequent attempt, it's always a question mark. So it looks like there is a filter driver or something which overrides the original file type specified by Firefox. If I could have dropped the shortcut on the Desktop during that moment when the cursor showed a big yellow plus sign, it would probably have created a valid shortcut without shift-CTRL. Would you agree that this sounds like a bug in the File Manager?
This might be happening every time you try to save a link, but maybe it happens too quickly to see, unless there are a bunch of pending file operations in the queue. Perhaps you could use a debugger to slow it down and verify this. But why would it save a shortcut correctly on the second attempt? That kind of implies we might be dealing with two separate issues here.
Regarding fourth attempt: I wouldn't expect a valid shortcut to consume 100kb, not by a long shot.
I think the confusion there was the fact that the properties dialog showed the properties of the HTML file instead of the shortcut. So if you have a valid shortcut on the desktop, but you also have an HTML copy, it seems like the link points to the local copy of the page. And when I launch that type of shortcut, in the lower panel the file manager says it is loading something like "22" (a local HTML file). But what is displayed in the browser is not the local copy; it is the live page. That makes no sense to me. The shortcut should not point to a raw HTML file on the desktop -- but if it does so for any reason, that should be what opens when you launch it.
About the valid information in the file properties, I did notice that there is a delay of generating the properties window but not what you saw.
In some cases the file properties had no valid information. In other cases there was a strange delay the first time you try to view the properties. So I can confirm those are two separate issues.
All of the working shorcuts had invalid information in the properties until I tried it without Shift-CTRL. It's really bizarre. But it does seem related to the same issue which causes the file replace dialog to be suppressed until you right-click on a Desktop shortcut.
I think the default for drag/drop should be a link, not an html page/file.
I have just found some documentation where Mozilla says that a link is the intended behavior. And while there still could be a bug in Firefox, I think there are some pretty serious bugs in the File Manager too.
I couldn't figure out your second attempt test of clicking on the first link. Can you duplicate it?
I did duplicate it once more by accident; I can now confirm that it was a single right click on the first shortcut. In order to reproduce this, I think you need to have at least two shortcuts. In the worst case, you may need to follow all of the steps that I posted earlier (where you create several shortcuts using both methods, allowing for any failure to create a valid shortcut.) I am not sure if it happens with both the Shift-CTRL method AND the normal method (where you get a valid shortcut on the second try.) Again this varies by web site in terms of reproducibility. Refer to the image above for an example of what to expect.
I'm neutral on the naming of links since the filenames are unique.
The standard on all other platforms is to append a number to duplicates, or prompt for replacement. In no case is it considered acceptable for multiple files on the desktop (of the same type) to display an identical name. And now I see that shortcuts do not appear in the File Manager. Can you confirm this? It's starting to look like things are so badly broken that it might be a long time before this gets fixed.
Well I guess I was not “explicit” enough. So let me explicitly say this in a fashion that even a ‘bonehead’ can understand: I am not asking YOU for ANYTHING. I am explicitly TELLING you something. So sit up and pay attention!
THIS IS HOW FIREFOX IS DESIGNED TO WORK ON ALL SUPPORTED PLATFORMS:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/create-desktop-shortcut-website
If it does not work that way on the default installation of Ubuntu Mate, it is a bug. I don’t know precisely which component is affected – but if that bug does not get fixed here, it will be fixed somewhere else. You cannot prevent this, but you sure have earned your name here for trying, UnkleBoneHead.
You are the epitome of “operator error” and I so wish someone would have answered your question with RTFM.
Your hypocrisy and insincerity just knows no bounds. I have posted a link to the ‘effing manual’ above, and it clearly shows that you were totally wrong to excoriate me for saying that Firefox is designed to support desktop URL shortcuts in Linux. If anyone needs to “RTFM,” it is you.
You berate myself and others for asking and suggesting that if you like how those work then use them.
You could not even spell “berate” until I used it in a sentence to describe your behavior. When you joined this discussion, you immediately started bitching about how you “CAN’T STAND” Windows & Mac." Then you proceeded to tell us all about your personal preferences, and how “stupid” you think other people are if they don’t share your preferences. Well someone needs to remind you that the topic of this thread is NOT ***‘UnkleBoneHeads preferences’***. The world does not revolve around UnkleBoneHead. You came in here for the sole purpose of fighting about your personal choices. And you were absolutely ENRAGED that anyone would dare to claim there is a bug Ubuntu Mate. And now you are trying to stop us from documenting that bug so it can be fixed properly.
By your own admission, you despise the concept of internet shortcuts on the desktop. And you continue to insist there is no bug because you do not want the bug to be fixed. You came to this forum seeking attention from others, and you came to this thread to fight. I came here to handle this bug in one way or another. That is the fundamental difference. But you don’t own Linux, and you don’t own this forum. It is not your place to dictate how other people choose to address this issue, and which workaround they choose to accept until that bug is fixed. While it might have been a waste of my time to educate you, the fact remains that you are the one who is out of order here. If you want to argue that there is no bug, or you just want to fight about your personal choices, start a new topic of your own. The people who believe that there really is a bug have a right to work on this project without being molested by trolls.
I sincerely hope you get banned.
Did you really think this sentiment was not obvious from your very first post? Yes, I get it: you have staked out this little spot on the web. You feel like it’s your territory, and you are threatened by newcomers. You want to chase away anyone that you perceive as a challenger to your “authority” on this forum. You are deeply afraid of anyone who makes you seem less important. But let me reassure you that I have no interest in participating beyond the point where this bug gets fixed. There are just too many little brats here who are spoiling for a fight. If you want me to go away, help us to properly document this bug – or at the very least, just stop trying to prevent others from working on it.
I am removing myself from this conversation again.
I will believe it when I see it.
Please do not tag me in it again.
I did not tag you, ‘gravy’ did. I merely quoted him in my post. While I was writing that reply, I was focused on documenting the bug. It never occurred to me that you would use this tag as an excuse to come back and dump another load of rubbish here.