Cinnamon "grid" icons

[Syndacate]

I've been dying for this feature for like the last 4 years, but apparently nobody on the gnome 2.X projct gives a unicorns about the rather small grouping of people, myself included, who wanted it.

I was wondering if it was *possible* for Cinnamon since the Mint project seems to listen a lot more to end user feedback, from what I understand.

The feature is SIMPLE, KDE does it, Windows (all flavors) does it, OS X does it. Gnome 2.X is literally the only thing that does not. This is that the icon grid overlaps like crazy. I shouldn't be able to move an icon 2mm down and have it snap to ANOTHER grid. On most desktop environments the grid has no overlap, so icons will never be on top of each other. I have seen no way to fix this, nobody seems to care, guess this post is kind of gaging the apathy here.

The reason is not only how nice it looks for sanity's sake, but when other people are introduced to Linux they typically meet the Gnome interface, and they typically think, after this experience, that "Linux looks like unicorns" - because they were exposed to a messy Gnome 2.X overlapping grid where the icons are barely aligned (if at all), and probably overlapping. It's annoying, it's pointless, it's beyond hideous, and being a developer, I'd really think that it's very easy to implement (fix). This is because the snapping feature is already there, the grid axes just has to be re-worked.

Any thoughts? Just a useless idea? *shrugs*

Thx for reading!

[xenopeek]

As this is a suggestion, moving it here.

The desktop is managed by your file manager, so this would be a suggestion for Nemo (Cinnamon's file manager from version 1.6 onwards).

[Syndacate]

As this is a suggestion, moving it here.

The desktop is managed by your file manager, so this would be a suggestion for Nemo (Cinnamon's file manager from version 1.6 onwards).

Not sure it was really a suggestion (maybe it was, not quite sure what its intent was). I was more-so kind of curious as to what others thought about this. Though yeah, suggestions may be a better place for it.

Yeah, I know the issue is part of Nemo (which I'm guessing was forked off nautilus?), just bugs me that nobody cares about it, lol. I have no idea how this bothers such few people!

[cwwgateway]

Just for clarification purposes, you are talking about desktop icons aligning to a grid so that they don't overlap? Meaning that in Cinnamon, you can drag desktop icons on top of each other, whereas in KDE they align to a grid? I'm sorry if the answers to these questions seem obvious, but I seem to catch on to meanings a little bit slower than other people - it's especially hard because I don't use desktop icons (they are very hard to make symmetrical) so I don't have any experience to base it on. Anyways, if I understand the idea correctly, than its a very good idea.

[Syndacate]

Just for clarification purposes, you are talking about desktop icons aligning to a grid so that they don't overlap? Meaning that in Cinnamon, you can drag desktop icons on top of each other, whereas in KDE they align to a grid? I'm sorry if the answers to these questions seem obvious, but I seem to catch on to meanings a little bit slower than other people - it's especially hard because I don't use desktop icons (they are very hard to make symmetrical) so I don't have any experience to base it on. Anyways, if I understand the idea correctly, than its a very good idea.

It's not necessarily the overlap, but yes, if this was to happen, there would be no overlap.

It's EXACTLY the part of your quote that I bolded!! It's exactly that, using the file manager, it's very hard to have 'one good grid' Everything looks out of place, not symmetrical, and down-right sloppy. If there was for instance, one grid, with equal row and column padding, which would in turn space all icons exactly the same distance apart (assuming they were all the same size), everything would easily look symmetric and much more clean & proper. The icons could be anchored from their center point so even if they weren't the same size it would still look nice.

The picture below is a short mock-up of what you could and could not do with this system. Basically, I hate to compare it to, because I know some people feel that trying to make them all one is pointless, but it'd be like KDE, OS X, or Windows, where everything is spaced nicely. Everything on my desktop (and even folders) is a cluster-f***, nothing is spaced evenly.

Ideal World

img.png (721.04 KiB) Viewed 2021 times

[cwwgateway]

Thanks, the mockup helped a lot. By symmetrical I actually meant there being 4 icon on the right sided of the desktop but none on the left. However, I have experienced this grid problem before in Gnome 2, and I found it very irritating. I support this idea.

[Syndacate]

Thanks, the mockup helped a lot. By symmetrical I actually meant there being 4 icon on the right sided of the desktop but none on the left. However, I have experienced this grid problem before in Gnome 2, and I found it very irritating. I support this idea.

Yeah, it's quite the pain in the ass.

Even if it wasn't an official feature that was supported by Mint, I'd like to at least know how to patch Nautilus to use this. I mean realistically I can dive into Nautilus myself and try to figure out how to implement the change and simply offer the patch files to anybody who is interested...but honestly I have a lot on my plate right now with trying to finish up my degree, so I'd have to put it on the back burner for awhile (the way back burner).

[Syndacate]

One and only bump for this :\.

Anybody else at all interested in seeing this happen? I'm not sure if Cinnamon devs actively check this, but I think it would be a great help not only to Mint but to the Linux experience in general.

I can't count how many times people's complaints with Linux (or A complaint, anyway) is that it's not polished, things feel very heaped together on the desktop. As an avid Linux user I whole-heartedly agree, the desktop looks like unicorns. This isn't a mint thing, either, this is a problem that has pushed all the way to early versions of Gnome. KDE was smart about it - they fixed it. I believe XFCE did too. PDF icons with previews, videos, etc. on the desktop can take up like 1.5 icons in height, and the folders aren't equidistant, so the whole thing just looks sloppy. Would be nice to see a system where icons are center anchored and have equal padding on all sides.

[Rehdon]

Hope my post won't be considered a "necroing" of this thread but I found it by chance while looking for a fix to this problem: having a large monitor I reduced the icon dimension, and the alignment problem is really annoying and distracting. IMHO this is one of the few things that Windows does better, together with the "long click" to rename files. Any chance it will be considered for a future version of Nemo? should we open a feature request on github?

Rehdon

[Syndacate]

I don't care if you are 'necroing' it, it's a feature that needs to exist (yes, 'needs' :-\).

I have a few people I can think of off the top of my head who I convinced to use Linux and this was a MAJOR complaint from ALL of them. **NOBODY** likes the BS alignment and yet it has been a problem FOREVER in Gnome. OS X, KDE, XFCE, Win7, all don't have this short-coming, and it's very sad to see a system that can have full community support fall short here.

I'd do it if I can find the time but I can't. Not to mention I'd have to ramp up on how it works b/c I've never compiled it from source before :-\.

[dogsolitude_uk]

Yeah, can I vote for this too?
It's really minor in the grand scheme of things but annoys the hell out of me... If desktop icons would snap-to-grid vertically as well as horizontally, I'd be much happier. For some reason. Maybe I have OCD or something, but a neat desktop is less distracting and allows me to focus more on the task in hand. It's a 'rough edge' in Cinnamon, if you like, that makes it feel like a work-in-progress still.

[Syndacate]

Yeah, can I vote for this too?
It's really minor in the grand scheme of things but annoys the hell out of me... If desktop icons would snap-to-grid vertically as well as horizontally, I'd be much happier. For some reason. Maybe I have OCD or something, but a neat desktop is less distracting and allows me to focus more on the task in hand. It's a 'rough edge' in Cinnamon, if you like, that makes it feel like a work-in-progress still.

lol, yeah, I'm a tad OCD too.

You're right, it is a tad OCD, and I'm a tad OCD, and I have a few friends who area a tad OCD who it pisses off like no other too.

What REALLY pisses me off though is that there's some people who don't want to use Linux because of this. Like, how exactly do we show the world we have a superior OS one user at a time when they see the half-assed alignment which has been around for like 5 years (at least) with absolutely NO will to fix it??

[abnvolk]

An issue for this was created 2 months ago: https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/108 . But it hasn't been fixed yet, so we'll have to wait...
This is an essential feature, and I don't think it's hard to add this. Seriously, it has been around for so many years...

[Syndacate]

An issue for this was created 2 months ago: https://github.com/linuxmint/nemo/issues/108 . But it hasn't been fixed yet, so we'll have to wait...
This is an essential feature, and I don't think it's hard to add this. Seriously, it has been around for so many years...

Yeah, good to see that it made it into an official request. Hopefully it'll get assigned and tackled soon.

[Rehdon]

Pity you can't vote for it or add your name under "Affects me too" like on Launchpad, I'm pretty sure there are lot of people that would appreciate a fix.

Rehdon

[palo]

Are dissenting opinions allowed? I also suffer from icon OCD but I want them to stay exactly where I put them and find it very annoying that some systems move them based on some grid pattern. Just have a feeling that there may be others that may not want this feature request.

Pat

[cwwgateway]

Are dissenting opinions allowed? I also suffer from icon OCD but I want them to stay exactly where I put them and find it very annoying that some systems move them based on some grid pattern. Just have a feeling that there may be others that may not want this feature request.

Pat

Interesting... that's definitely a valid opinion and I hadn't thought of that. I wonder if it could be an option in the desktop settings? Honestly, I've given up on icons on the desktop in general in favor of icons on the panel (I've started using two panels wherever possible, so I have extra space). Desktop icons seem very asymmetrical to me now.

[Syndacate]

Are dissenting opinions allowed? I also suffer from icon OCD but I want them to stay exactly where I put them and find it very annoying that some systems move them based on some grid pattern. Just have a feeling that there may be others that may not want this feature request.

Pat

Interesting... that's definitely a valid opinion and I hadn't thought of that. I wonder if it could be an option in the desktop settings? Honestly, I've given up on icons on the desktop in general in favor of icons on the panel (I've started using two panels wherever possible, so I have extra space). Desktop icons seem very asymmetrical to me now.

But my reason for posting, along with other reasons, is that it shouldn't be an asymmetrical experience. Users shouldn't feel that they have to run from the Desktop (they currently do). Some people like the desktop, others don't. Though many on both sides of the camp feel menaced by the icons in Gnome 2.X, and therefore, Cinnamon.

[palo]

Are dissenting opinions allowed? I also suffer from icon OCD but I want them to stay exactly where I put them and find it very annoying that some systems move them based on some grid pattern. Just have a feeling that there may be others that may not want this feature request.

Pat

Interesting... that's definitely a valid opinion and I hadn't thought of that. I wonder if it could be an option in the desktop settings? Honestly, I've given up on icons on the desktop in general in favor of icons on the panel (I've started using two panels wherever possible, so I have extra space). Desktop icons seem very asymmetrical to me now.

Brilliant! Those that are liking the way it is now have no reason to say anything, if it were to be changed the complaining would begin. Having a selectable option would keep everybody happy.

Pat

[dogsolitude_uk]

OPTIONAL?!?! But... But... Options are soooo last decade. They went out the window with Gnome 2, Windows 8 and Unity. The way forward these days is to have an idea, or better still a 'vision' and force people to put up with it whether they like it or not. You don't really want to give users the ability to adapt their work environment to their preferred way of working, surely?

Blimey, the Mint guys will be soliciting feedback on user experience and asking for suggestions and new ideas next...

Oh, wait...