Multiple Desktop Folders mockup

For now, Gnome-Shell allows us to distribute the applications among several desktops. These are virtually increasing the working space, and in this way we have a clearer view in our daily work. We believe that we can extend this functionality, by increasing the Desktop folders count.

Nowadays we have only one Desktop folder by user, that is located in /home/you/Desktop. This folder is displayed fullscreen on every workspace, and we can keep an eye on the docs on which we work the most. Unfortunately, this Desktop is single. In the real life, everyone work on many projects in parallel (work / travels / pics / shopping…). The Desktop is our preferred workspace, and it can be fulfilled and unreadable quite fast.

So we suggest here to raise up the count of Desktop folders, and use the Gnome-Shell interface to handle them easily. The following mockup is a good demo of what we want to achieve :

A Desktop folder (or Project) allows us to easily gather everything to get to work. With this folder, you can collect all the items (pics, docs, contacts, links) that you need to execute your current activity. For now, we have only one Desktop for these different activities. To make your workflow clearer, why not having a Desktop-folder by activity ?

A simple project menu

To make easier the use of the Desktop, a new menu is added in the Overview mode. It's based on the Desktop folder tree, and with it you can drag and drop to assign any Desktop to any workspace. Moreover, from the menu you can edit your projects to :

• Add or erase a Desktop folder
• Create and manage folder groups (by creating categories like : work / pics / vacations…)
• Rename a folder
• Assign it or change its group
• Duplicate an existing folder
• Merge several folders

A simple Desktop folder tree

Each Desktop folder can be in a sub-folder. It allows to easily classify the folders by category at the user's convenience. We will use a simple file tree to facilitate its maintenance.

1- The "pics" group, 3 projects :

• /home/you/Desktop/Pics/New-York
• /home/you/Desktop/Pics/Maroc
• /home/you/Desktop/Pics/Prague

2- The "work" group, 2 projects :

• /home/you/Desktop/Work/Server1
• /home/you/Desktop/Work/CustomerRelationship15

Each folder can have its proper wallpaper to ease its recognition. The image file is hidden in every Desktop folder, with the very same name every time (eg : .background.png ).

By default, a first Desktop folder has been created : it picks up the same characteristics from the current Desktop model, and people may not use this feature if they want to work as usual.

• /home/you/Desktop/Desktop stands for Desktop 0.

Each Desktop folder can display disc volumes (Hard-Disks, Optical devices, and USB Keys) as the current version.

Some other features:

• It's possible to save and move away with your project, as it's a simple folder
• At the opening of your session, you can see and use your last opened workspace
• Some files can be added in a systematic manner when a new Desktop folder is created