btw will Nautilus replaced in 19.04 or will it be updated to the next current version?
Very likely to use the version of nautilus recommended by Canonical. Unless though if someone debian packages an alternative file manager that is superior to the current crop of file managers in the repository
Okay - well for me the version of nautilus is good. But what’s agenda for 19.04 with nautilus?
making the assumption that nautilus v3.32 will be shipped - this will obviously mean no desktop icon support. Remember, desktop icons is a nautilus capability - not a budgie capability.
So a native budgie capability will need to be developed. At a guess, probably like the proposed gnome-shell-extension but written in Vala/C.
Alternatively we could look at something like this project - it will need more enhancement work to be a good replacement
okay that will be good. Yes, it’s Gnome which doesn’t support any desktop icon.
So, we are going to develop a native budgie capability?
Spheras would be interesting to develop and focus on the future. Maybe we could start with Spheras and in the future it would be a replacement. We can start working on Spheras now?
Personally I am open to any idea. I would prefer a native budgie capability - would be nice to get direction from Solus-Project but direction from upstream in this area at the moment is a little quiet (could be wrong - haven’t seen anything published)
For Spheras - it needs to be installed and someone needs to give a very good run through to find out the areas that needs improvement to make it a viable solution. Would be looking for as close as possible a one-for-one replacement for the current nautilus desktop icon solution.
Well, I share your idea too! 
It’s a pity that Solus-Project is in this case quiet.
Okay, so Spheras with 18.10 could be installed on VM and one might work there on it?
seems like a good approach - obviously turn off desktop icons in budgie-settings first
Okay nice Hehe yes it is obvious to turn off desktop icons first
Would you recommend to test it on VM or should I create a 2nd device to test on real aspects.
shouldn’t make any difference - VM should be OK to-do the evaluation.
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Okay - I’m just asking because every person prefers other ways for testing 
By our testing team collectively it works fine. And we tested it out in all possible angle for a solution. And we are happy to say that it works like a charm. Anything is missing please shout it out here we are more than happy to help and get things resolved in more practical ways.
Complete story of testing
- on UB18.10
2, installed the panel give in this link: https://github.com/spheras/desktopfolder/releases - did a copy paste of files : works
- Did some drag and drop of files in panel: Works
- minimize and maximize the panel: works
so far so good…
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If you manually copy a .desktop file from /usr/share/applications/ to ~/Desktop does it automatically appear on the desktop? --> yes it does
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If you drag the .desktop file from the desktop to plank does that .desktop file have the correct icon in plank?
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On 18.10 you can switch on Network Icon/Trash Icon/ Home Folder Shortcut/ Mounted Volumes. Is there any functionality available within Spheras-Desktop Folder to switch on similar icon capability? --> no functionality built in currently
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We also need feedback as to whether this handles multimonitor
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HiDPI support?
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Multiple workspaces? Any issues here? --> same desktop icons & folders on each workspace is visible
FYI I had a quick look at desktop-folder (the replacement desktop icons project). It seems pretty straightforward - vala project and fairly easy to understand and modify.
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I don’t think it will take much effort just to tidy some stuff up. There is a dozen or so lines of deprecated GTK+ function calls that need to be brought up-to-date. Will have a go at that myself.
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The upstream name of the binary is very odd “com.github.spheras.desktopfolder”.- think it should just be “desktopfolder”
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A minor tweak to the popup when you right-click the desktop to hide a GTK Separator.
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I was mulling over whether there is need to support the ~/Templates folder to enable you to right-click and create Template documents. But that is obviously still available via Nautilus itself.
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Drag-drop from the desktop into a desktop-folder is a nice bonus to implement. But not really a must have IMHO.
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In addition a must have is to hide the first “folder” on the desktop that is created. Don’t believe that should happen on first startup. Would need to be a gsetting setting that we can then override.
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The source contains a debian folder - this will not work for Debian and Ubuntu builds since the package is specific to elementary. Suggest needs deleting/moving to another branch
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The release tarball is not signed.
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Some source files say “GPL+2 or later” - some say “GPL+3” and the overall project LICENSE is GPL+3". Inconsistent
But in essence - anything else that needs to be done is a bonus.
making the assumption that nautilus v3.32 will be shipped - this will obviously mean no desktop icon support.
Base Ubuntu’s Nautilus package comes with /usr/bin/nautilus-desktop, which is running as part of the environment, in parallel to /usr/bin/nautilus, and (obviously) delivers desktop icons with all the features known from Nautilus windows. RAM footprint is some 20 MiB, in case that matters.
In later versions of nautilus that desktop package component will not be there.
If sphera/desktopfolder obviously looks nice, it’s something rather different than displaying as icons the content of ~/desktop…
It’s quite rigid. It’s tidied up. It’s somehow too cartesian
Whereas classic/legacy desktop is quick and easy to use : you just drop your things there on, and yes it can be messy but that’s part of the creative process…
it actually does this as well - you can align icons and folders in a grid format.
In addition you have those additional features to display panels, notes and photos.
It does need more work - currently liaising with the desktopfolder maintainer to see what the art of the possible is here. Its early days.
I’m sure the maintainer of desktopfolder would like the offer of additional help to fix the various issues I have raised with him so far…
…on the whole desktop screen ? Without the colored « box » ? Then it might replace nowadays icons on desktop.
You don’t need the panel. In the git master the ability to not create a panel on first start-up is now available for distros.
So assuming we go with desktopfolder we will use that capability so that the desktop by default will show just files and folders.
I have raised a number of other issues on the upstream tracker where I consider it important to be resolved before we would accept desktopfolder as a viable desktop icon replacement.