Ubuntu: Two Ways to Keep A Clean Desktop Without Affecting Your Efficiency
I love placing all the shortcut icons and files on my Desktop because it allows me to access to my data quickly and save me the trouble of searching for it in Nautilus.
On the other hand, I also have a passion for clean desktop. I have a huge collection of beautiful wallpapers and I love to set my desktop to rotate the wallpaper every 30 minutes. It is my source of inspiration and seeing the beautiful wallpaper allows me to relax whenever I am too stress out from my work.
Apparently, having a lot of desktop shortcuts and a clean beautiful desktop together is not quite possible. I need a solution, a method that allows me to clean up my Desktop, yet allows me to access to my shortcut icons and files quickly.
1st Method: Toying with the gconf-editor
Nautilus is the app that is in charge of rendering the desktop icons. By configuring the relevant entry in gconf-editor, you can get Nautilus to show/hide the desktop icons. (I will not go into the detail here)
Ivy.fr has come up with a script that allows you to toggle on/off the desktop icons. Here is the modified version.
Open a text editor and paste the following code into it:
#!/bin/bash if ( `gconftool --get /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop` == "true" ) then gconftool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop \ --type boolean false else gconftool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop \ --type boolean true fi # EOF
Save the file as ToggleDesktop.sh and place it in your Home folder.
On your file manager, right click on the ToggleDesktop.sh file and select Properties. Select to the Permissions tab and make the file executable.
Now, whenever you click on the script, it will hide/show the desktop icons.
You can also drag and drop the script to the panel for easy access.
The limitation
While this method seems like a good way to show/hide your desktop icons, it comes with some limitations:
1) Once you have toggled the desktop icons off, you’ll have totally no control over the desktop. You won’t be able to access the context menu (via right-click) and you won’t be able to change the wallpaper. If you are using a wallpaper changing app (such as Drapes), it will no longer work.
2) This is not stable and it could cause the Nautilus to crash occasionally. The problem is, when Nautilus crashed, it does not show any error message. You will have completely no knowledge that it has crashed.
3) Hiding your desktop icon is fast, but getting them to display again will have a time lag (of about 1 second).
2nd Method: Using Compiz and a lightweight file manager
The second method is an idea that I have come up on my own that allows me to maintain a clean desktop and at the same time have quick access to my data. It makes use of Compiz widget layer and a lightweight File Manager.
Unlike the above method, the idea here is not to hide your desktop icons, but to create a folder to store all your Desktop icons/files and make it into a widget where you can access it easily.
The lightweight file manager that I use is Thunar. It will work too if you use Rox-Filer or PCManFM. I avoided using Nautilus as it is the default file manager in Gnome and I don’t want it to mess up my system.
Instructions
1) Create a folder in your Home directory and name it Desktop_Folder.
2) Move all your desktop shortcuts and files to this folder. In the future, this will be the folder where you place all your shortcuts and files that you want to have quick access to.
3) Install Thunar and CompizConfig Settings Manager
sudo apt-get install thunar compizconfig-settings-manager
4) Open up Compiz Config Manager (System-> Preferences->CompizConfig Settings Manager)
5) Go to the Widget Layer section. Click on the Behavior tab.
Enter the following in the Widget Windows field
title=Desktop_Folder – File Manager & class=Thunar
6) Click on the General tab, on the third row of “Toggle Widget Display”, configure the screen corner to activate the widget. For me, I chose the bottom right corner.
(Check out this article for more detail on setting any applications to be a widget in Ubuntu)
7) Close Compiz Settings Manager. Go to System->Preferences-> Sessions (or Startup Applications if you are using Jaunty). Create a new entry and enter the following:
Name: Thunar
Command: thunar /home/your_username/Desktop_Folder
That’s it. Whenever you startup your computer, Thunar will load up with the Desktop_Folder directory and hide itself behind the screen (in the widget layer). Whenever you need to access your files, simply point your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen to display Thunar. There you will find all your shortcuts and files.
Let me know if these two methods work for you. If you have any other ways to keep a clean desktop without affecting your efficiency, do let me know in the comments.
Image credit: indra-wahyudi
Tags: compiz, desktop, shortcuts, Ubuntu
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[Click to close]15 Responses
Wow! I have 0 icons on my desktop (zero).
I have 23 icons on my menu panel. There one click launches them. The desktop always took a double click. I just don’t have enough spare energy to do a double click.
If an application did not make the top 23 then I use the menu to launch it. That takes three clicks and then I’m exhausted.
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Donofca Reply:
May 8th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I agree, 3 clicks are just too hard. By the end of the day my finger is just too sore to point and I can hardly raise my hand. But that’s the price I pay for doing it the hard way.
(Zero Icons, too. Hmm good name for a club: “The keepers of Zero Icons.”.)
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I know exactly where you are coming from. I wrote an article that shows why this is important and how it is handled in KDE. I think you will find it interesting.
http://temporaryland.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/why-windows-needs-multiple-desktops-capability/
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or no use icons at all and use gnome-do or something similar
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well, you’re doing it all wrong. up until recently (i haven’t tested this with the latest 2.26 nautilus tbh) you could do a lot better:
Alt+F2 to bring up the run dialog, type “echo ~/Desktop > ~/Desktop/.hidden”
Focus the desktop (click on an empty spot) hit F5, icons are gone! Hit Ctrl+H (as in any other nautilus window, and it shows the hidden icons. Hit Ctrl+H again and they are gone again… etc etc… As fast as it can get… no scripts and the like ;)
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All the mechanizations you put forth as a remedy to having “clean”, beautiful desktops while leaving icons of applications and folders/files readily at hand is easily solved – KDE Desktop rel 4.2.2 or higher.
The Folder view configuration let’s one keep all the accessible icons in Folder to be “popped- up” instantly at mouse click. How cool is that, and much more efficient technology and concept.
W. Anderson
wanderson@kimalcorp.org
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I totally agree with W. Anderson. KDE 4(.2+) allows quite a bit of flexibility with regards to how you lay out your desktops. The Desktop Activities allows you to set up multiple desktops, each with a different layout so you can put icons on one, clean desktop on another, etc…
If you don’t want to bother with Desktop Activities, you can just use the folder views and utilize the show/hide plasmoids/gadgets to show/hide the ‘desktop’ icons. That coupled with the flexibility in what you can show in a folder view (pick a folder + pick a filter).
Alas, Gnome doesn’t have that kind of flexibility and is designed around an expectation that all users will use their desktops in the same manner (WIMP).
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Damien Reply:
May 10th, 2009 at 9:12 am
I don’t deny KDE is much better than GNOME in desktop management. However, being a GNOME user, switching to KDE is not one of my option, that why I have to come up with various tricks to do this. Nevertheless, thanks for sharing.
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Hi everyone. i would like if you guys gives me the URL of the wallpaper shown on the screenshot. i’ll really apreciate it. Thanks. my email is sodomywar@gmail.com if you want to send i to the email.
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Thanx!
^_^
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I’ve been struggling with something in this area.
I’d prefer to display my desktop icons as a list (left of screen) like in Nautilus File Manager but have been unable.
In gconf I’ve set Icon size to “Smaller” and set text to display beside the icons, but the latter setting doesn’t seem to work. (I also have to adjust the text line setting when the icon size is reduced and am not displaying mounted volumes to clean things up). But I don’t want an empty desktop like yours.
I put in a Launchpad bug on this a year ago but it’s not geting any traction and it’s not in the “100 Papercuts” project.
Any thoughts?
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How about…
- Create a folder. Put all your desktop links into it.
- Add a link to the folder onto your desktop.
- Minimize the folder when not in use.
Or is one icon on your desktop too many? ;o)
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Anotherfolderview screenlet seems to be a perfect solution:
http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/AnotherFolderView+Screenlet?content=111823
too bad i can’t get it to work, keep getting a memory error…
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Damien Reply:
September 20th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Anotherfolderview looks like an useful app. i will test it out and see if it works on my PC
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I use AWN – a dock bar. Create Desktop_Folder in home directory. Open it using nautilus – a filing cabinet (icon) appears on the dock bar. Click it to display/not display the folder. When it’s displayed save it as a bookmark – then its always accessible in the Places menu.
Simple!
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