Add ability to more intuitively add/remove "Desktop Icons" through the "Appearance Preferences" Window

[fermulator]

For many users coming from the "Windows World", they are used to seeing familiar icons on their desktop such as "My Computer", "My Documents", "Recycling Bin", etc.

The most intuitive way to try to get these icons is to right click on the desktop, and find a menu which might relate to this modification. I've been with Ubuntu since 6.XX days (now using 10.04), and the closest menu item I've seen for this is:
 Desktop --> Right Click --> "Change Desktop Background".
Now, this opens the "Appearance Preferences" dialogue window. Unfortunately, the user can browse through this window and it's tabs and menus, but will not find the ability to add desktop icons.

As per http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2006/12/07/how-to-include-my-computer-or-my-documents-icon-your-desktop-ubuntu-510-6061-610/, it is currently possible to achieve this goal using the "gconf-editor" tool. This is certainly an acceptable means for any moderate to expert user, but doesn't really help the beginners unless they can properly Google for this problem, and that assumes they'll even spend more time on this than they already did looking through the menus and system preferences without success.

SUGGESTION: Add a tab to "Appearance Preferences" called "Desktop". In here, the user should be able to control the addition and removal of "Desktop Icons" (and perhaps other things going forward!).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: gnome (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Jul 8 21:11:19 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_CA.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: meta-gnome2

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Thank you for taking the time to make Ubuntu better. Since what you submitted is not really a bug, or a problem, but rather an idea to improve Ubuntu, you are invited to post your idea in Ubuntu Brainstorm at http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ where it can be discussed, voted by the community and reviewed by developers. Thanks for taking the time to share your opinion!

[fermulator (fermulator)]

Submitted idea to http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1319/