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By 19.04, Gnome developers have finally removed Nautilus' ability to directly handle the desktop. A shell extension was made to plug the gap, and this appears to be installed as a direct requirement of ubuntu-desktop-minimal and ubuntu-desktop.

I already appreciate that drag-and-drop is not possible to other applications [yet] but I have icons on my desktop that were positioned before the upgrade; icons that cannot now be repositioned.

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It's driving me a little loopy. I have a few of these.

Given Gnome has users like me in its sights, I am trying to wean myself off the desktop but it's been an integral part of my day-to-day workflow since Windows 95. But regardless of your overarching desktop opinions, I'm not sure how I'm expected to deal with a desktop that allows positioned files but gives no mechanism to reposition them.

That seems insane to the point where it must be me doing something wrong.
My question is simple: Is there a way to reposition icons on the Desktop Icons extension?

Edit: Upgraded laptop and I can reposition icons. Any ideas why my desktop isn't complying?

Oli
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  • In my case (just upgraded to 19.04) the icons are duplicated on my desktop. One version that I can move, one that I can't. – Jos Apr 23 '19 at 11:35
  • I would say it is a bug (and as such offtopic on this forum). Hopefully the Gnome developers come up with a patch soonish. – Jos Apr 23 '19 at 11:44
  • "I'm trying to wean myself off the desktop as an integral part of my day-to-day workflow" as somone who started out with windows 98, I've pretty quickly got rid of the desktop in my day to day life and I've stopped using it at all (when there is nothing at all on it my Feng-Shui is at it's max) and I can say I have no regrets. everything is so much faster this way. the desktop not being an icon on the taskbar nor part of alt-tab it just slows your workflow considerably if you ever have to use it at all. I would stongly recommend weaning to 100% desktop-free use, as I have. – tatsu Apr 23 '19 at 13:03
  • To quickly wean away from the desktop, open Gnome Tweaks, go to the Extensions tab and disable the "Desktop Icons" extension. All your icons are gone. The corresponding files still exist in your ~/Desktop folder, where you can recover or delete them. – vanadium Apr 23 '19 at 13:19
  • I just booted with Wayland and the icons behave as usual now. – Jos Apr 24 '19 at 07:36

1 Answers1

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Press ShiftLeft Mouse Button while moving icon, at final position release buttons and that's all

Luis Moreno
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