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Monday 29 September 2008

Some Ideas for Desktop Improvements

I have few ideas to improve the desktop presentation to support better my needs. Basically a few things that I find important:

To Do List

I want a to do list which is more or less always present when the desktop is on.
  • classification by priorities
    • important and urgent
    • not important but urgent
    • important and not urgent
    • not important and not urgent
    • not classified
  • classification by subject
    • work
    • administrativ
    • Hobby
    • Family
  • Style of the task and Icons
    • Position of Tasks as Desktop Icons
    • Size of Desktop Icons
I had seen a few months ago a presentation by Mozilla Labs (if I recall well) as well as others on how to improve the display of the desktop. I find this really good. This might not be that complex to implement. But before starting the implementation, I only need to know where the different parts are stored, as well as the process used for making the changes. I am not completely sure whether the information remains in memory or is stored on file. For instance, the position of the different icons is found in the following file: ~/.nautilus/metafiles/file:%2F%2F%2Fhome%2Fusername%2FDesktop.xml

Organized Important Files

I want that the files which I have on my desktop are organized in a meaningful way, for example in thematic and time oriented way. From left to right time oriented, top to bottom thematic. Of course the classification cannot be automatic for the thematic way. Moreover, the time oriented way might not always be relevant.