feedback on default plasma-desktop layout

[Giuliano Colla]

Anne Wilson ha scritto:
> On Tuesday 30 Aug 2011 Kevin Kofler wrote:
>> Anne Wilson wrote:
>>> Now I'm really confused so I made a new folderview to see what really
>>> happens in Fedora 14.  It opens at ~/.
>> The folder view widget itself defaults to ~, but the default layout script
>> in 4.6 was explicitly setting the folder of the folder view created by
>> default to ~/Desktop.
>>
> Even more confused, then :-) because I'm running 4.6.5, and it opened at ~.  
> Maybe it's something in my personal settings.  <Sigh> It's so difficult to make 
> sensible comment when so many things affect the situation.
> 

Slightly OT, but not too much. Maybe it's been discussed before and I 
missed it.

The discussion about folderview brings me to a more general question 
about 4.x features. In old 3.x times, the Desktop was just a folderview 
showing the ~/Desktop folder contents. Whatever you wanted to be shown 
in your Desktop could be either added to it by a context menu, or simply 
put into the ~/Desktop folder. The only real difference between what was 
shown on Desktop and what could be seen with a file manager was that on 
Desktop everything was translated. It was rather simple and 
straightforward, providing all the functionalities required. An empty 
Desktop folder would lead to a clean empty Desktop, a Desktop folder 
populated with links to folders and applications would lead to a Desktop 
providing quick access to user's most needed features.

I fail to grasp the rationale behind creating Plasma and Plasmoids, 
which to a simple minded like me appear to be nothing but a clumsy 
implementation of what was already available, and then including the 
folderview we're discussing, to mimic previous features which in old 
good times were already there, and much simpler to create and to maintain.

Could someone give me a clue of why Plasma, Plasmoids and such should be 
considered a step forward, and not a step back, as it appears to me?
Is there something more than parroting Mac Desktop, which is the poorest 
point of Mac implementation trading off functionality in favor of 
pleasant look?

What are, by an user point of view, the extra features we've gained?
What do I fail to grasp?

-- 
Giuliano Colla

Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong (O. Wilde)