Desktop desires and questions

[les]

HI, everyone, 
	I know that this has been discussed before, and I will go back and read
more of that.  

	I want more efficient use of my desktop.  Pretty is nice for most
people and of course design driven types, but I am a technophile, closer
to Sheldon (of big bang theory) than normal people.  I know that.

	Here is what I find in using the desktop as it exists in F16:

The need to click to get to the computer is annoying at its very best
and a real vocabulary expander in normal use.  Every time I use one
application and I want to access another I have to click 
	"activities"
	my windows shrink....
	and I have to move the mouse to
	"applications"
	click
	I get the menubar I should have in the first place
	of course its on the opposite side of the screen and I now have 
	to mouse over there and click
	"topic" (and the applications are somehow scattered by my view)
	which should be a pullright to a menu
	but which sprinkles applications all over the screen.
	mouse to my application
	click 
	"my application"
	And finally my application comes up.
	Oh, yes, I do have a 23" monitor, so the route of crossing the desktop
will get worse when I upgrade or go to multiple monitors later this
year.

This is so ergonomically inefficient, so slowing that it adversely
impacts my progress.

Anyway, that is only the most irritating bit I have found so far, but it
is worse.  I don't see anyway to move the icons, change their sizes,
move them to various menus, expand the menus, or do anything at all to
change the current layout which is not at all conducive to my work.  I
put this off long enough to hope that these issues had been addressed,
but they are not.  

	I don't want to start a flame war.  I don't want to start a debate
about desktop managers (I know there are many out there) Nor do I wish
to castigate anyone.  I want to just make the thing do what I want
without a whole lot of deep investigation into XML files.

	I want to know where the documents and or utilities are that will let
me do something to improve my working environment and get back to
efficiency.  If you have useful information, please send it on.  I am
sure I am not the only one who wants this information, nor should it be
hand editing xml files, although if that is the only method, I will do
it until I get too frustrated with Fedora.  AT this point I will not
give the disks to a friend who wants to use Fedora, because he is sight
impaired and this desktop will not work.  That is a real affront to
disabled people and should spark some kind of action by everyone
involved.

Please keep it civil and provide solutions for this desktop, don't say
change desktops, don't start flaming, just help me and others get this
thing to do what we need.

With all that said, the basic needs as I see it are:
	1. a way to get a list type menu instead of icons
	2. a way to move the icons (if a list is not possible) or listing to
different top level applications menus.
	3.  Get the applications menu on screen all the time as a pulldown.
	4.  ability to change icons by right clicking on the current icon and
selecting a "change icon" menu which will open a file navigator.
	5. remove the "activities" switch and put the windows and applications
buttons in its place with pull downs optional.
	6. remove the "favorites" and just let us put the icons on the desktop
if we so desire.
	7.  do whatever else can be done to allow font selection, including
fontsize as well as icon size for the desktop.  This is an HID
requirement anyway.
	8. Stop the messing around with the open desktop in any way whatsoever.
It is distracting and interferes with efficiency.


Oh, and I did do some Google-ing, but got very little useful
information.  Since Fedora is the cutting edge, lets make it cut a good
swath. Thanks.

Regards,
Les Howell