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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Configure which devices show to the desk : best usability
From:       "Manuel Amador (Rudd-O)" <amadorm () usm ! edu ! ec>
Date:       2003-07-24 19:16:08
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I think I might have found a reason why people turn it on and off:

* Desktop flicker and icon reorganization (loss of desktop icon positions).

Historically, KDE has shown (at least on all my machines) that sometimes the
icons lose their position on the desktop.  This happens when the desktop is
refreshed, but it's not consistent or repeatable (i mean it happens only when
KDE feels like it, I have no control whatsoever and don't know what triggers it).

With the addition of that drive on the desktop thing (which is great IMO)
whenever I plug my removable USB drive the SDA1 icon appears, most of the times,
all my icon arrangement screws up.  At some point, when my KDE session has been
on too long (two days, and my Linux sessions consist on 5-day sit-ups, and
should increment since I got my new UPS - props to Network UPS Tools), all icons
disappear, except for the devices icons.  This is naturally annoying and very
unprofessional, enough to bar KDE from wide KDE-as-a-desktop deployment.

Summary:
* desktop refresh flickers horribly
* icons unpredictably disappear
* icons don't keep their positions
* when drives are removed, the new icon for the removed drive appears, *but* it
doesn't have the position of the removed drive.  I know that under it all, what
KDE does is remove one icon and put another, but this fact should be
transparent, for which the icon position of the new icon for the same drive
should be the same position as for the old icon.

And to nudge icons a bit, I have to drag way away, then drop, then re-drag back
to where I want it.

(we may also need to actually provide FRIENDLY names instead of /dev/sda1 and
the like, such as SCSI CD-ROM 1, or Toshiba BLAH BLAH, or Iomega Zip XXYYZZZ,
names with which people are familiarized)

Quoting Gordon Tyler <gordon@doxxx.net>:

> Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> >>Hardly ever I would imagine. In fact, I suspect (again, no evidence)
> >>that the only reason that the checkbox exists is to make it easier for
> >>the underlying implementation to determine whether it should
> >>enable/execute the device tracking/detection code.
> > 
> > if this is the reason, it should simply be removed because this same thing
> can 
> > be accomplished in a couple lines of code... the only other possible reason
> 
> > is that this is something that people turn off/on a lot...
> 
> If people do turn it on/off a lot, perhaps we should find out why since 
> it probably exposes a deficiency in the design or implementation. 
> Normally, people either want some of the devices to be shown on the 
> desktop, or none at all. If they're constantly turning things on and 
> off, there must be something wrong.
> 
> Ciao,
> Gordon
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> kde-usability mailing list
> kde-usability@mail.kde.org
> http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability
> 


    suerte,

    Rudd-O

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