[Approved] Plasma 6 proposal: Consolidate desktop folder layouts
Currently, there are two desktop folder layouts available, 'Folder View' and 'Desktop'. They could be easily merged without issue:
- Folder View could have the option to show no location, instead of the current choices of 'Desktop folder', 'Files linked to the current activity', 'Places panel item: <>' and 'Custom location: <>'. An option for 'No location' would simply not have any desktop icons and disable the mouse drag selection, completely absorbing the functionality of the Desktop layout option.
- Additionally, it could gain the option to hide desktop icons, which is something a user might want to do, for instance, when creating a screen recording. This would probably appear under the Icons category and as a toggle switch in the context menu under Icons.
| Layout option | Location options |
|---|---|
 The layout options, which are somewhat confusing for users and are more of an implementation detail. |
 The 'Places panel item' choice could be removed, as it's kind of redundant - places are visible in the picker dialog for a custom location.
|
The way that the settings window shows settings for both options is dynamic. The choice of layout is in the Wallpaper category, but further categories (Location, Icons, Filter) are added depending on the selected option (and forcing the window to reopen). This is quite poor behaviour, as a user wouldn't expect the settings categories to change.
I was prompted to think about this when a user commented to me that it was strange that the choice of whether to show desktop icons was listed under Wallpapers.
I'm also completely unaware of how this is handled internally, whether Folder View inherits and expands upon the Desktop layout as it appears to do.
This would be a good step in consolidating things ready to eventually place desktop options in System Settings (I could imagine a UI similar to Display Configuration to select the desktop to change, but by default only having customisation for all desktops as a single unit).
I haven't properly used Plasma 4, but I expect that the choice of Layout was originally far richer and this is simply a holdover from that time.