Proper alignment of desktop symbols

Development Discussion
#1

This isn’t the problem of Ubuntu or Ubuntu Mate but ALL Linux Distributions.
Not a single one does proper grid allignement of dektop symbols.

Why? Just why? Why is it so hard do do such a simple thing Windows 95 could do and even Windows 10 didn’t mess up (yet)?

If you right click the desktop there is the option for fix arrangement, what is supposed to arrange desktop
symbols in a fixed pattern.
Well, if you create a new folder/icon it will be placed correctly, however not if you move it manually.
I don’t consider this a bug but just pure lack of sense for detail in the Linux Dev community.
This is nothing huge but it is annoying to the point that it will acutually prevent Windows user from switching to Linux.

Just imagine this would happen in folder view. You drag and drop a file in a folder and the icon will not allign properly. Maybe it overlays with another icon. Wouldn’t be so petty of a problem anymore right?
So you can’t deny the fact that this shouldn’t be the case on the desktop as well!

So my question is - can this “feature” be properly integrated by the Ubunut Mate devs
or is this a problem deep within Linux? Maye xorg or something. Then who can fix it?

It just annoys me. It’s the tiny simple things Linux is lacking. Single details

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New to mate - align desktop icons?
#2

Yeah I agree this is really anoying. Xubuntu/xfce does that really nicely (at least from xfce 4.12, I don’t remember what was going on on older versions of xfce).

#3

One of the reasons, probably the biggest reason (and as was once explained to me), is that the Gnome desktop was never intended as a normal storage area. Some users tend to want to use it like a traditional storage/organizational area; like with Windows for instance. But there’s whole chunks of code missing from Gnome 2 to handle spacial arrangement on the Desktop that was never going to be written because that was not an intended feature of the Gnome UI (and that now MATE inherited).

Instead, the Desktop in Gnome was always meant to just offer a simple list-like vertical arrangement for a small set of features. Traditionally, the trash, external drives and network access.

I understand the transition to this UI principle may be difficult or enervating to some. There’s this idea that Gnome (or MATE) can’t just make this apparently simple feature to work correctly. Especially because along the way, the Gnome team made the mistake of accepting commits with a partial ability to arrange icons on the desktop, which just makes the whole thing look like it was an intended feature of the DE. Historically, bug reports about this issue have been closed when the Gnome 2 project was alive… and I’m afraid I defend they should be also be closed on the MATE project.

I use MATE without any sort of icon on the desktop. My desktop is clean of any icons. Not even the trash. In fact I was already doing this with Windows 7 itself for many years, after I realized how counter-productive the whole idea was. It’s a design principle from the days of GEM in the 80s, when there was no concept of desktop, just of a background where windows with icons inside could be moved, and that has been since then artificially carried through successful generations of GUIs and that was spread to some Linux DEs.

Since it only contributes to create a dependency between programs/documents and icons on a desktop that now I would need to manage in addition to everything else. When a program can so easily be opened with a keyboard combination. a desktop menu access, or a dock (for those who use them), or a document so easily opened from a program recent list, or through a few more clicks that don’t take more than 5 or 10 seconds, desktop icons can’t help and force the closing or moving of windows in order to become accessible. Which is a greater sin and is the reason someone had to invent the Show Desktop button.

(fwiw, the Gnome Shell reintroduced the design of an icon populated desktop area)

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#5

Actually, GNOME 2 (and MATE) do the whole grid thing just fine, you have to be peculiar about your placement of icons and occasionally shuffle things about. It’s almost like a multi-level grid with how GNOME snaps icons, and that’s probably the complaint the OP mentions.

I use my desktop as a launchpad of sorts, and it’s also a nice way to keep user folders handy without making extraneous bookmarks.

#6

@tiox I can't understand what you mean by "GNOME 2 (and MATE) do the whole grid thing just fine". Shouldn't grid mean that desktop icons are kept in equal distances and in alignment? Here's an image with Keep Aligned enabled (it doesn't seem so aligned) :stuck_out_tongue:

Unchecking and checking again the Keep Aligned option (this should be called a bug because no one should need to check and recheck one option to take effect) does it a bit better, but it is still bad, because grid should mean equal distances (both vertically and horizontial) on all desktop icons in a way that the name of the files doesn't get covered (that means bigger distances and/or show partial name of files when they are not selected):

On the contrary xfce (at least the latest 4.12 version) keeps all the desktop icons equally distanced and aligned really beautifully.

#7

I have used Gnome2/MATE for 8 years and never seen a mess like that.
It seems you hit some kind of bug.

What happens if you click “Organize Desktop by Name”?

#8

@mrtribute Don't get me wrong, the desktop icons don't get automatically like this, I moved them manually. When I click "Organize Desktop by Name" this happens:

Screenshot at 2016-09-28 22-09-54.png314×1048 445 KB

A sort of alignment, but still not perfect. The virtualbox shortcut "Ubuntu-Fedora-Opensuse" has big name so everything below gets pushed down (Goldendict should be at same hight with update-system but it's not).

On the contrary xfce has perfect alignment, no matter how you move the desktop icons, as you see in the image below:

Screenshot at 2016-09-28 22-15-31.png341×927 96.7 KB

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#9

Could it be only the file manager then?

I’m going to give Thunar a look in a live session and see if it works like I think it would. (Probably doesn’t but worth a go.)

If it’s only the file manager, then Wimpy can see how its magic works and apply it to Caja in a way MATE will accept. You must remember; Thunar is a GTK FM too.

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#10

Okay, I am going to put this as succinctly as humanly possible for you to best understand how both Caja and Nemo do desktop icons.

xfdesktop4 does icon arrangement similarly to Microsoft Windows, where icons are not allowed to overlap one another.
Nemo and Caja, being derived from Nautilus inherited the “Fine mesh” grid that both file managers use.

What you seem to be looking for is a grate that puts all the marbles in their place, which Nemo and Caja isn’t. They’re more like sieves in regard to their icon placement; They do snap in place, but it’s very fine in comparison to the marbles in grate holes that is both Windows’ Explorer and XFCE’s xfdesktop.

I do like how useful xfdesktop can be, hence why I wrote a guide about using it (despite if thunar isn’t installed, desktop file operations are broken) but despite that, I like the consistency I receive with letting nemo handle my desktop, in comparison to using exo-utils to open up my file manager, having mismatched file managers and lack of folder colours, which costales’ PPA for that provides me.

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#11

Guys

Take a look at his post. I had a problem with desktop icon movement, and for me it ended up being some inconsistencies between Theme and LightDM settings. Not exactly the same as your problem but related so might be relevant.

#12

@tiox thx for explaining. So, if I understood correctly, this “problem” (or feature) affects caja and mate desktop and not Ubuntu MATE and how the specific packages have been compiled. If that’s the case, can we make a feature request at github to add an option after Keep Aligned and call it something like Keep in grate (pls help me about how this request should be asked) that implements a behavior similar to xfdesktop? Should this request be asked here: https://github.com/mate-desktop/caja/issues/ or here: https://github.com/mate-desktop/mate-desktop/issues ?

P.S. I think such a feature is really important especially when we try to bring more windows users to linux. Xfce is almost a dead project (gtk3 port will take at least more 2 years and there are no discussions about further development or wayland support) so MATE will be the best alternative for Gnome,Unity,KDE in the future.

#13

Whatever magic xfdesktop4 is using needs to be evaluated. I do agree, it would be nice if there was a option to never overlap icons. That’s what it could be; A checkbox on the desktop that says “Allow overlap”, or even a hidden dconf / gsettings switch would be good enough for this.

If the approach used is to hide the option, have it be to disallow overlap by default and if a user wants the old icon behaviour they can just enable it.

About where to submit the request, it could be for either, as information will be aggregated and exchanged eventually but having it done for Caja first would be useful. If they refuse to take up the task, see if one of the people who do stuff for Nautilus / Caja / Nemo would be willing to make a plugin that allows for modifying how the icons are handled, if it can be done as a plugin.

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#14

Ok I filed a feature request here: https://github.com/mate-desktop/caja/issues/644. If I did something wrong or anything please let me know. Hopefully, someone will see it within the next 5 years :stuck_out_tongue:

P.S. I don’t think that nautilus/gnome team would care about this, since I think they try to completely “kill” desktop icons (you have to enable them first from gnome tweak at every distro with gnome I’ve used so far).

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