Bug 496627

Summary:	Discourage the user from moving, renaming, or deleting any of the standard XDG dirs within Dolphin
Product:	[Applications] dolphin	Reporter:	contramuffin
Component:	general	Assignee:	Dolphin Bug Assignee <dolphin-bugs-null>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	akselmo, hein, kfm-devel, nate
Priority:	NOR	Keywords:	usability
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
See Also:	https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434418
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description contramuffin 2024-11-24 00:45:31 UTC

SUMMARY
Setting the desktop as a symlink to another folder causes interesting and unexpected interactions on the desktop when moving files to and from the desktop. I have ~/Desktop symlinked to another folder on another drive. It generally works well, but I noticed that if you drag and drop a file from another folder onto the desktop space, the copied files do not appear on the desktop. Checking ~/Desktop through Dolphin shows that the files have properly copied, and if I restart the computer, the files will show properly on the desktop space.

Additionally, files seem to update properly if you right click > go to the Desktop and Wallpaper settings > change the location from "Desktop Folder" to "Custom location" with an address to the same symlink. To me, it seems like the folder viewer isn't refreshing when it should due to some weird interaction with the "Desktop Folder" option and symlinks

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Make symlink from ~/Desktop to another folder (possibly needs to be on another drive?)
2. Make sure that the "Desktop Folder" option is selected on the desktop settings
3. Try to copy a file to the desktop by dragging and dropping a file onto the desktop
4. Go to the desktop settings option and change the location to the same symlink as a custom location
5. Try to copy a file again to the desktop

OBSERVED RESULT
The file copied on step 3 does not appear on the desktop, although the file did copy. The file copied on step 5 copied and appeared on the desktop as expected

EXPECTED RESULT

Both files from step 3 and 5 should appear on the desktop immediately after copying

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Kubuntu 24.10
KDE Plasma version: 6.1.5
KDE Frameworks version: 6.6.0
Qt version: 6.6.2
Kernel version: 6.11.0-9-generic (64-bit)
Graphics platform: X11

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2024-11-25 21:14:39 UTC

Yeah, this is quite creative, but I'm not surprised it doesn't work. If you want to change the location of the desktop, the correct way to do it is in System Settings > Session > Locations.

If you change it there, does stuff start working more like how you would expect?

Comment 2 contramuffin 2024-11-26 10:41:49 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> Yeah, this is quite creative, but I'm not surprised it doesn't work. If you
> want to change the location of the desktop, the correct way to do it is in
> System Settings > Session > Locations.
> 
> If you change it there, does stuff start working more like how you would
> expect?

Yes, it works then. I mainly have the desktop symlinked because I want the desktop folder to show up in /home, but I suppose one way that you could potentially resolve that is by keeping the desktop symlinked in /home and then set the desktop location in system settings. I think the concern for me is mainly that it's unexpected/unexplained behavior. I can't be the only person who's done this, right?

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2024-11-26 22:18:55 UTC

You may be. :) But it's not an impossible thing to do. Probably what we should do instead is have Dolphin warn you (I'm assuming you made the original change in Dolphin, right?) If you attempt to rename, move, or delete any of the XDG locations that are governed by the setting I pointed you to earlier.

Instead, it could point you to the System Settings page, which is the right place to make that change. And then we should have the page prompt you to move all the files in the old location to the new location after you change it, which is tracked by Bug 434418.