A couple of simple suggestions for tighter integration between Files and Overview

[mycophobia]

Hello! I have some suggestions for both GNOME Shell’s Overview and GNOME Files that should greatly increase a user’s flexibility in their workflow, yet not be in the way (perhaps even unnoticeable to those not looking for these proposed features), and not too difficult to implement or maintain.

Firstly, the Dash should be able to contain files and folders. I believe there to be a sore lack of a genuine, customizable quick access space for arbitrary items in GNOME; if I can only pin apps to the Dash, and I can only pin files and folders in Files’s Starred folder, then I need to not only have, but also keep in mind in the midst of my task, a logical understanding of the kind of thing the thing I need is. This, I believe, is an unnecessary cognitive speed bump, and goes against the otherwise task-oriented overall UI of GNOME.

Similarly, GNOME Files should handle .desktop files correctly. Currently they do not show their names or icons as they would in every other major file manager once they are marked as “trusted”, and items cannot be dragged and dropped on top of them. This is what disqualifies Files’s Starred folder as a genuine quick access space, as application launchers are effectively unusable from within Files. A context menu item could be added to application launchers in the Overview to place a copy of it in a folder (“Add to Home Folder”, perhaps?).

As it stands, I have to conceive of files and folders as files and folders, and apps as apps. While this is strictly true and generally a good thing to understand, it’s when the interface insists that I recall this information every time I need to pull “something” out that it becomes somewhat of a mental burden. If one were able to place files and folders in the Dash and able to properly use .desktop files in Files, I believe a great deal of flexibility would be added to GNOME’s overall UI for, what at least seems to me, very little cost.

Thanks for reading
myco

[mycophobia]

Please don’t take my double-post as any sign of urgency; these posts are less me expecting any kind of action on the part of the undoubtedly very busy GNOME developers and more me putting my ideas out into a space where maybe someone will read and understand it. I just think about UI stuff kind of a lot.

That being said, I think I can better support my first post in this way: Why do people who like desktop icons, like them?

From a novice’s perspective, a desktop is attractive because it’s something you never have to find. The Dash and the Apps grid are pretty much equally findable in my estimation, and can’t be covered up.

But there are plenty of users who aren’t novices who miss desktop icons, and install extensions to get them back, etc. I believe there are two main reasons for this:

First, the desktop in nearly all its modern incarnations, is the last remaining holdout in the largely dead trend of spatial file management. It’s the last place one can arrange icons wherever one wants to; not merely changing their position in a grid, but literally putting them anywhere on the screen. I’m not delusional enough to think there’s a snowball’s chance of reviving Spatial Nautilus, as much as that would personally please me greatly, so we can move onto reason 2 from here.

Which is, it’s also a UI element with the vanishingly rare feature of allowing the intermingling of files and application launchers. It’s a place to put stuff, whatever that stuff may be. Again, I think there’s a context switch involved in moving from “my files and folders” to “my applications” that shouldn’t always be necessary, but in GNOME, unless I’m overlooking something, it always is. I think this could be obviated by the features I mentioned in the first post, or in some other fashion (a 2-dimensional “drawer” drop-down in the Top Bar wherein one can drag-and-drop items from GNOME Files and the Activities screen maybe?)

Sorry if I’m being annoying, this will be my last unprovoked post on the subject.

Thanks again for reading,
myco