Comment 2 for bug 915615

Hi everyone, i read about this on omgubuntu.co.uk and i really do feel LUbuntu could use some of these 'papercuts' to aid usability, so i though i would chime in with a couple of issues / suggestions i have. As XFCE isn't as lightweight as it could be, i really would like to start giving it to users with slow computers, and i'm really looking forward to the 12.04 release, even if it won't get 5-year LTS status.

- When using LibreOffice on Lubuntu, saving a file only opens the native LibreOffice dialogue, not a GTK / Gnome one. Also, the default 'human' theme doesn't really fit in with LUbuntu, but the alternatives aren't much better either. I guess this 'papercut' might be considered irrelevant, as LibreOffice isn't part of the LUbuntu install, but i think a lot of users will install it to ensure better compatibility with M$ office documents than can be provided by Abiword/Gnumeric.

- Also, when i tried LUbuntu out on my Acer Aspire one netbook a while ago i also noticed that the notification says 'click on this icon to connect to a wireless network' - but the networkmanager applet icon on the panel doesn't actually match the icon displayed in the notification!

- Also, would it be possible to add in some power management support to lubuntu? e.g. wattOS uses LXDE, but also installs the XFCE power management app, allowing one to configure suspend / hibernate options and so on. Ideally, LXDE would do this upstream - seeing the term 'XFCE' on wattOS does look out of place though!

- From what i've read on omgubuntu.co.uk, it's been implied that the nice new 'Software Centre' for LUbuntu won't be installed by default - is this indeed the case?

I don't know how easy it is for the LUbuntu team to suggest improvements to LXDE proper upstream, but here's a few things i would love to see too, some of which i believe would radically improve usability:

-- Support for 'special' icons on the desktop ('Computer', 'Network' and so on - with an appropriate context menu in pcmanfm - after all, pcmanfm does already have support for computer:/// and network:/// URIs). I can emulate this behaviour with a .desktop file in /etc/skel/Desktop/ , but the context menu really doesn't make sense on the resulting icon (also see next point)

-- If a '.desktop' file is seen by pcmanfm, don't treat it as a text file ('open with leafpad'), and implement / reuse a dialogue allowing these 'shortcuts' to be configured

-- Allow an 'applications' icon to be placed on the desktop - OR at least allow pcmanfm to be run with "menu://applications/" as a parameter - also, the context menu on items in this 'directory' having appropriate options too (probably just 'open' tbh - 'uninstall' would be amazing - though probably unfeasible across different package managers / knowing which package provided the .desktop file and so on)

-- Desktop icon positions automatically being saved (rather than requesting this be done specifically) - currently i have to edit /etc/skel/.config/pcmanfm/lubuntu - and enter the co-ordinates manually if i wish them to be displayed in a certain 'order'.

-- Ability to create custom icons for certain items - such as the users' 'Documents', 'Music' etc. folders, and/or emblem support

-- Ability to add a symlink to a folder / directory (OR the .desktop file in the case of an item in menu://applications/), to the desktop / somewhere else through pcmanfm

- Support for the GTK 'favourites' in the side panel of pcmanfm, not it's own system - one of the great things about GNOME 2 was that it provided consistency between the side panel in the file manager and the side panel in the file dialogues - which was an absolute revelation to the linux desktop - sadly neither pcmanfm OR thunar do this - and this can be VERY confusing to users!

- Ability to configure preferred terminal size in LXTerminal (the terminal in XFCE does do this iirc, but only by hand editing the config file) - e.g. i prefer 120 x 36 generally

Sorry if i've posted this in the wrong place, put way too many ideas in one post, or suggested improvements which would make LXDE bloated / 'heavyweight', but i am a bit of a n00b with this sort of thing, and it is hard to know where i should make these suggestions. Most people are still familiar with the Windows 95 paradigms that Gnome 2 has been so successful in providing - although i would hate to see LXDE become as 'bloated' as Gnome 2 is/was - xubuntu is way too slow to boot on the Acer aspire one with ssd for my liking, but Lubuntu is lightning fast (if a tad confusing).

I know i can use remastersys / install my recommended packages / set up a recommended /etc/skel for my users to cover some of the issues i've had with lubuntu, but not everyone will be able to do that, and most of these suggestions involve code rather than config anyway.