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linuxmint / nemo

File browser for Cinnamon
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[Suggestion] Desktop Grid #108

Closed liclac closed 7 years ago

liclac commented 11 years ago

One of the things that annoys me about Nemo's (and Nautilus') desktop is that there is no proper "grid" of icons, only columns. Both Windows and OS X let you keep a neat grid of icons on the desktop, but with Nautilus/Nemo, your desktop ends up looking very messy if you have a lot of icons, since the rows won't be straight. If you could add a setting to enable a proper grid with horizontal rows, it would be greatly appreciated.

mtwebster commented 11 years ago

Thanks :)

MiY4Gi commented 11 years ago

Seconded. And what would also be nice is the ability to adjust the size of all the icons collectively (Currently icons can be adjusted individually, but it's near impossible to adjust all the icons to the same size This can be tricky since the grid column/row size should preferably be adjusted as well, in accordance with the scaled icons. And then there should also be an option to adjust the desktop font size. I think this all ties in with the Desktop grid idea. Should I open a separate Issue and reference this one?

mahajanudit commented 11 years ago

Thank you so much for pointing it out. This has been bugging me and a lot of people out there for so long. I have even been trying to work around nautilus code to figure out how to correct this and I think I am close. On a separate note this can be fixed by a greater extent by setting text ellipsis to "1" in dconf settings for desktop. The name of the icons are just limited to a single line though, but it does look neat though.

simonwiles commented 11 years ago

to be honest, I've never missed this functionality myself, but friends and relatives who I've introduced to Mint ask about this very regularly.

DuMuT6p commented 11 years ago

I`m not sure if this should be added on this issue, but an option to truncate long icon names would also be great.

hosef commented 11 years ago

I would like this also. It makes my desktop look very messy to not have this.

29821632 commented 11 years ago

Also options to adjust the grid margin and exposing desktop icon/font size prefs in the UI would complete Cinnamon.

StanleyKrute commented 10 years ago

In priority order, I'd like to see :

a. Adjustable horiz. and vertical spacing for the icon grid b. Global icon sizing c. Options for wrapping or truncating long icon text labels so that they fit within the grid and thus don't overlap other icon text labels

Thanks to everyone for supporting this common-sense icon grid feature request.

ghost commented 10 years ago

There is an option to organize desktop icons by name, on the right click menu. This option also aligns all the icons vertically when it is used. However, one may not need to arrange the icons by name in order to keep them also vertically aligned. Also the vertical alignment should be done automatically (like the horizontal one).

spacekookie commented 10 years ago

KDE has it, XFCE (!!) has it being a super lightweight environment. Windows 98 had it and every release since, OSX has had it since the mid-90's. I can't get it into my head why any modern desktop environment (cough GNOME3, LXDE, Cinnamon, MATE, ……) wouldn't implement this.

t-oster commented 10 years ago

I got it to work (kind of) by increasing some values. It is not perfect yet, but at least I found the code responsible for the alignment. What strategy do you suggest? The main problem is, that the preview-thumbnails have a much bigger height than usual symbols. If you disable the preview and use the values from my commit, you get a regular X/Y grid. However I think it would be more elegant, to use the size of the biggest icon as grid size automatically. I will implement this also, but I would like to know, what most people prefer.

kubik256 commented 10 years ago

Best way - disable preview, title max. 2 lines and hidden overflow... and automaticaly use height of course :)

Also please add some spacers between icons :+1:

t-oster commented 10 years ago

This is how it looks like, just with the values changed in my commit. desktop-grid

I also uploaded "nemo-desktop-grid" to the AUR, if anyone is using ArchLinux. What do you mean with spacers? DId you try the behavior with the patch?

kubik256 commented 10 years ago

This is exactly as it has to be ;) Very nice work, thanks :+1: (I did not try any patch, can I find it somewhere?)

t-oster commented 10 years ago
  1. Find out how to compile nemo from source for your distribution
  2. Change the file "libnemo-private/nemo-icon-container.c" according to https://github.com/t-oster/nemo/commit/ae0262eef48dc547e96b4742a7dc2169593e3679
  3. install.
  4. Disable the preview in nemo's settings
  5. restart nemo

For ubuntu/mnt:

t-oster commented 10 years ago

Prebuild package for mint 17 (64 bit): http://files.thomas-oster.de/nemo_2.2.4%2bqiana_amd64.deb

tonyk79 commented 10 years ago

Many thanks for the tutorial and for the package!

kubik256 commented 10 years ago

Thx ;) Nice work :+1:

ghost commented 10 years ago

Hi Thomas,

I tried to install nemo-desktop-grid from arch linux, but couldn't find the package you mentioned in aur or anywhere else ("nemo-desktop-grid").

Thanks for your work.

On Mon, Sep 8, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Thomas Oster notifications@github.com wrote:

This is how it looks like, just with the values changed in my commit. [image: desktop-grid] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/1052720/4181557/8ebc85fa-371c-11e4-96f8-a41c6d8f7b6a.png

I also uploaded "nemo-desktop-grid" to the AUR, if anyone is using ArchLinux. What do you mean with spacers? DId you try the behavior with the patch?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/108#issuecomment-54779090.

t-oster commented 10 years ago

You are right, I forgot to upload it. I will upload it this afternoon. Unil then:

t-oster commented 10 years ago

here you are https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nemo-desktop-grid/

kubik256 commented 10 years ago

Prebuild package for mint 17 (64 bit) - WORKING :+1: Nice work, you are No. 1 ;) Thanks.

t-oster commented 10 years ago

see my comment in #696 updated mint-package will follow tomorrow

t-oster commented 10 years ago

mint package updated. same link.

Jesse-V commented 9 years ago

I followed https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/108#issuecomment-54789165 and it worked fantastically for me!

jharris1993 commented 9 years ago

With regard to the "snap-to-grid" functionality, (and yes, I know this sounds heretical), but I would look at the window manager functionality in Windows 7 very, very closely. Windows may have gotten many things wrong, but they have the desktop, and it's organization, down ice cold.

What I, (IMHO), consider "must haves", as far as desktop organization is concerned:

  1. Snap-to-grid.
  2. User adjustable horizontal and vertical grid spacing. (IMHO, the icon spacing in the illustration above is way too large. I'd like them closer than that.)
  3. Uniform icon dimensions, or at least icons constrained within a pre-set size.
  4. Uniform icon description size that is no larger, (or only slightly larger), than the icon's width. If the icon's name is longer than two lines, it should only show the first two lines when not selected.
  5. Icons should never, never, be allowed to stack on top of each other.

Perhaps a separate issue, as this would apply to icons both on the desktop and within the file-manager:

  1. The ability to slow-click on the name of an icon to rename the file.
jharris1993 commented 9 years ago

Update: I downloaded the .deb package above. When I went to install it using package manager it stopped with the warning that a newer package was already installed.

Trying to use dpkg to install the .deb above on Mint 17.1 (cinnamon) 64 bit results in the following:

Storage3 Downloads # dpkg --install nemo_2.2.4+qiana_amd64.deb
dpkg: warning: downgrading nemo from 2.4.5+rebecca to 2.2.4+qiana
(Reading database ... 185828 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack nemo_2.2.4+qiana_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking nemo (2.2.4+qiana) over (2.4.5+rebecca) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of nemo:
 nemo depends on nemo-data (= 2.2.4+qiana); however:
  Version of nemo-data on system is 2.4.5+rebecca.
 nemo depends on dconf-tools; however:
  Package dconf-tools is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package nemo (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.54ubuntu1.1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.10.1-0ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.22-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.6.7.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 nemo
Storage3 Downloads #

Any ideas, or should I just punt and wait?

Jim (JR)

mtwebster commented 9 years ago

punt. Going to work on simplifying the existing desktop and implement a real grid.

Greyvend commented 9 years ago

2mtwebster: appreciate that, this is really what will add enormous value to the system look and feel.

ghost commented 9 years ago

@jharris1993 I assume nothing. Btw. Win7 does not handle monitor rotation well, it does not keep the icon positions. Anything else is okay by the desktop.

mtwebster commented 9 years ago

Hi guys - this is being worked on, though I've yet to tackle the grid issue .. if you want to follow progress:

https://github.com/mtwebster/nemo/commits/new-desktop

There are a number of things I'm wanting to fix, the grid being just one:

I've done mostly a lot of refactoring so far, but I should be getting into some nitty-gritty soon...

mtwebster commented 8 years ago

I pushed an initial set of changes a few days ago for the desktop - https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/commit/d93ea62ed7b6e15f64ecf16054a8a966877c55e2 - and have started working on icon layout.

mtwebster commented 8 years ago

I don't have more progress yet (due to other Cinnamon things as well as life in general), and I'm running out of time for the next release. The changes potentially being made here affect normal icon views (windowed) as well, and we've been toying around with other issues in the same big block of code (poor spacing when you're using large zoom icons, etc..). You'll be happy to know I've put this back front and center on my plate as of last night, though, and I hope to have some better news soon.

pepa65 commented 8 years ago

This "feature" is the reason I totally cannot use XFCE with the standard desktop manager. If implemented, PLEASE make it optional. I want to be able to fine-tweak my positioning of INDIVIDUAL icons. (I need a lot of them...)

MavropaliasG commented 8 years ago

I think this feature is fundamental for a desktop environment.

The solutions that were shared with the users in this thread are not useful for a fix?

kn00tcn commented 8 years ago

so wait, would this relate to mate/caja at all? the screenshots of icons look identical so i was thinking one is a fork of the other or there is shared code, etc

@inf3rno windows loses your icon positions on rotate change since the resolution changed, every resolution has different icon positions (maybe... at least every physical monitor that has a different resolution, or are you implying when you rotate back that the icons reset?)

ghost commented 8 years ago

@kn00tcn Yepp, it would be great to restore previous icon arrangement by rotating back the monitor. It has a pivot and sometimes I use it to read PDF or watch standing images.

Pival81 commented 8 years ago

I have found a workaround until the devs fix this. just install the xfdesktop package (in archlinux at least) and run xfdesktop --replace. You can make it run at every boot automatically. The only problem is that you need to have installed thunar, and you can't change the background from the cinnamon settings, you have to do it from the xfce settings (right click on the desktop -> desktop settings)

kn00tcn commented 8 years ago

@Pival81 is that ONLY for the desktop? can you still use mate panel/caja/etc & something like compiz? (maybe you implied thunar takes over caja)

Pival81 commented 8 years ago

@kn00tcn yes, i think you can still use whatever file manager you were using. Also, compiz can't run in cinnamon.

kn00tcn commented 8 years ago

@Pival81 oops, been following multiple threads since mate/caja has the identical issue as cinnamon/nemo (is one a fork of the other? does the issue go back to gnome2?)

Pival81 commented 8 years ago

They're both fork of the old nautilus (2.x)

iairpolo commented 8 years ago

The "nemo-desktop-grid" is no longer in the AUR

Pival81 commented 8 years ago

The only solution to this is to ditch cinnamon and use xfce, maybe with thunar handling only the desktop and nemo for everything else. Or use xfdesktop in cinnamon.

kelebek333 commented 8 years ago

You can install "Desktop Icon Size" Cinnamon Applet for alternative solution.

https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/applets/view/268

http://s4.postimg.org/xacssykgt/Desktop_Icon_Size1.png

http://s4.postimg.org/5oemm0qhp/Desktop_Icon_Size2.png

Vahan86 commented 7 years ago

@JosephMcc, can we mark this issue as a feature request?

t-oster commented 7 years ago

If I have time, I will create some Mint Packages. Which versions are you guys on?

clefebvre commented 7 years ago

Hi,

I reduced this issue to something people could actually read. I had to remove a lot of upvotes and off-topic comments. Please don't flood issues with empty comments, things other people already said or lobbying tactics.

If you want to just agree with a comment or an issue, click the thumbs up icon. Nobody counts that, and once an issue is already known to be "popular" (which is definitely the case here), it really makes no difference how many people upvote it. But at least, it doesn't interrupt the conversation and it doesn't notify the devs for no reason.

When you get an email you read it, when you get 100 on the same issue and the last 50 you read were +1 notifications, at some stage you just stop clicking the links and you start deleting notifications blindly. This isn't helping, quite the opposite.

ghost commented 7 years ago

Hello clefebre:

" ... once an issue is already known to be "popular" (which is definitely the case here), it really makes no difference how many people upvote it."

I have nothing but the highest respect for your high standing in the Mint/Linux community and the very hard work you have put into developing Mint to get it where it is now.

That said, please let me also say that what you have unfortunately qualified as empty comments which notify the devs for no reason actually exist because of the null amount of attention issue #108 has received since it was started here more than four years ago, in spite of being "popular" and at the same time ignored with no attention paid to the very sound case many of us have made for it.

Your editing out the posts in reaction to this state of affairs is very dissapointing and regrettable. Hopefully this one will make it past 2016.

Mint1864

ghost commented 7 years ago

@Mint1864

The "resemblance to the Windows desktop" (actually to the mechanics) is a very important issue as the MS desktop, like it or not, is one of MS's great achievements. Like I have said before, they "have it down pat" and we all know that it's a bad practise to go against success, especially if you want to compete with an established paradigm. ie: how the MS desktop works, not necessarily how it looks.

What users really need is finding data, selecting data and do some operations on the selected data. These are the basic features if you want to manipulate files, database records, media, or whatever data you want. In the current case finding data is not properly implemented by the desktop. Without grid and arranged icons, you add noise to the visual interface, and with that noise it is harder to find what you are looking for. I can easily imagine a totally different desktop, where these features are well implemented and which does not resemble to the ms desktop. If it is good and easy to use, then people will use it, if it is not, then they won't. This does not depend on the resemblance. I understand that the MS desktop is good, but with a few days practice I can use Unity, KDE, Mate, Gnome3, or XFCE just as easy as the MS desktop. So I don't think that's the point here. I think the point is that people won't use a distro or a desktop environment, by which basic features are not implemented for many years and developers have time to edit issue comments instead of trying to implement these features. But ofc. that is just an opinion, I no longer use Mint or Cinnamon, I just subscribed to this issue when I was using it.