Save to Desktop; Drag-and-Drop

Posted Feb 8, 2007 13:49 UTC (Thu) by bobacus (guest, #589)
In reply to: ROX Desktop provides light, _quirky_ alternative by gvy
Parent article: ROX Desktop provides light, quirky alternative to GNOME and KDE (Linux.com)

"Save to Desktop" is, as I see it, a MS Windows-ism, and a rather poor one to imitate - in my sysadmin experience on Windows, it has led to files being saved in a user's Profile rather than their home directory, causing the integrity of files to be dependant on the integrity of the Roaming Profile system, or else for files to be unknowingly stored on a local PC rather than the network. It sounds like ROX Desktop is simply treating icons on the desktop as shortcuts/symlinks, instead of making it a file store in its own right - and it mimicks RISC OS in this respect.

I for one think there is more milage to be gained from the use of drag-and-drop. In RISC OS applications, you could save a file by dragging an icon to a filer window, avoiding the frustration of hunting around for the directory within the save dialogue box when you already have it open as a Filer window. (You could also type in the directory path directly if you wanted.) I'd like to see this implemented in X applications, alongside the existing directory navigation control.

Rob