There could be an option to make new icons appear on the right hand side of the desktop. This would be a usability enhancement. New windows are usually opened on the left hand side of the screen and the right hand side of the desktop remains uncovered.
Created attachment 1464 Sample implementation of this feature This is the implementation of this feature in form of a patch against xfdesktop-4.4.2.
I think I actually don't want a UI option for this. If we're gonna change it, let's just change it, and not make it a pref. It would be nice to be able to switch between the two layouts depending on GtkTextDirection being GTK_TEXT_DIRECTION_LTR or GTK_TEXT_DIRECTION_RTL, though (with default LTR being your proposal, and RTL being the current behavior). Either way, I still think the (0, 0) position should be the selected screen origin, whether it's top-left or top-right. Eventually I want to support gridless positioning of icons, so the (row, col) pairs will get replaced by (x, y) pairs, and we can just do coordinate system translation depending on the layout (hmm, or maybe setting window gravity will do that automatically, not sure). Anyway, just thinking out loud here. Not really sure what I want to do. If you want to modify your patch to remove the UI pref, and handle it entirely in XfdesktopIconView, switching off gtk_widget_get_direction(), and not touching XfceDesktop at all, that would be great. Really, I think you should be able to do this without modifying anything except xfdesktop-icon-view.c. Not sure if we can do this for 4.4.3; depends on the amount of code changes needed, and if we think it's a good idea to make such a big switch in the stable series.
Hmm, in fact I did this because I wanted my icons to appear on the right regardless of the language or text direction (I use XFCE in English). For me it's a usability improvement. There are some desktops (OK, it's MacOSX) which do it like this and I thought it's great, because new windows no longer hide your most important icons. Some people, though, my prefer icons appear on the left hand side of the desktop, so I thought a switch is a nice thing. GTK_TEXT_DIRECTION would fit in determining the default setting, i.e. for _RTL the icons would appear on the right, with the user still able to put them on the left. I can imagine some RTL language speakers being accustomed to having icons on the left hand side of the desktop and disliking them on the right.
Right. I've been thinking about switching this for a while, but I do *not* want this as a pref. It will not be configurable. Not obeying text direction is IMHO a bug -- regardless of what the default layout is -- and is unrelated to this. I just brought it up because I want to preserve the possibility of doing the layout either way. I'll accept a patch that: 1. Allows either layout while considering (row, col) = (0, 0) to be the origin position, whether it's top-left or top-right. 2. Automatically switches between top-right and top-left layouts depending on the gtk text direction. 3. Does not add a pref.
> I've been thinking about switching this for a while, but I do *not* want this as a pref. So this boils down to: * Do we want a pref for this? or * Do we want new icons to be placed on the right hand side of the desktop, everytime, without a pref? Not that this conflicts with https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3204 (enhancement: text beside icons on desktop) - text on the right side of the icon would either overflow out of screen borders, or the text would offset the icon itself to the left. I'd personnally prefer the current behavior to be preserved (new icons show up on the left). The desktop is one "switch to desktop" button/keyboard shortcut away, and this request only helps if you have no windows covering the right side of the screen (just move windows from there if you need to see new icons show up) As this bug has not been touched for 7 years, I'll close it in one month (2014-12-28) if no other info/decision has been provided.
I'm moving bug https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9534 here, because it's the same request, with different requirements: > I have the desktop icons "type" set to "minimized windows", and personally i would like them to stack up in the bottom left, sideways instead of at the top left. Using a panel for this is just too stiff and cumbersome, plus adding the names to the icon "buttons" makes them annoyingly large. The best thing would simply be the already existing desktop icons, but with a different orientation. * Display new icons on bottom-left * Stack new icons horizontally instead of vertically
*** Bug 9534 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Moving bug https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8239 here, because it also concerns where new icons are placed (in multi-monitor setup): >When using multiple monitors, desktop icons only appear in the leftmost monitor >(that has its top-left coordinates at 0x0). This should be configurable so that >any of the monitors could be set as the starting point for the desktop. >See relevant discussion at http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=5492
*** Bug 8239 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 6756 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I would vote in favor of the use of a preference setting in Settings Manager, or a "sticky" desktop that allows any type of positioning one desires; a true drag and drop without positioning constraints. And Julien, this is not a duplicate of bug 6756. That was a completely different issue (bug 2794).
(KitchM, I corrected bug 6756 right after hitting enter too quick. bug 6756 is NOT marked as a duplicate of this bug, but as a dupe of bug 2794 - no way to remove bogus automatic comments on bugzilla)
*** Bug 10037 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
bug 10037 suggest placing launcher/filesystem icons in the top left corner, and the removeable devices in the top right corner: >if you have many icons on desktop you have to search for the plugged device icon longer.
Bug 11388 suggests the following >In RTL, icons should be arranged from top-right, not from top-left. >See how Caja of MATE Desktop arrange icons in RTL. >$ xfdesktop -V >This is xfdesktop version 4.10.2, running on Xfce 4.10. >Built with GTK+ 2.24.17, linked with GTK+ 2.24.20. >Build options: > Desktop Menu: enabled > Desktop Icons: enabled > Desktop File Icons: enabled
*** Bug 11388 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
This is important. When will this issue be acted upon?
Closing in favor of Bug 14979, the proposed patch accomplishes what is requested here. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 14979 ***