Comments on: Hide Desktop Icons in Ubuntu

By: A simple matter of… » Customisation and Gnome FAIL

A simple matter of… » Customisation and Gnome FAIL — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:37:43 +0000

[...] of simplicity” I have to use the godawful gconf tool, figure out which setting to [...]

By: gaarai

gaarai — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:45:26 +0000

Interesting solution Pete. It’s not exactly my cup of tea, but I’m sure that some readers will like it.

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:51:12 +0000

A script which puts all the files on the desktop into a list in a hidden file called .hidden on the desktop will hide all the icons (except the volumes,trash etc). Unfortunately you must refresh the desktop to see the difference.

e.g.

#!/bin/bash
#Script to hide icons
ls ~/Desktop > ~/Desktop/.hidden

#!/bin/bash
#Script to show icons
rm ~/Desktop/.hidden

By: gaarai

gaarai — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:39:34 +0000

Thanks for the tip greg. I should have mentioned this when I posted as I did actually try this. The reason that I did not stick with the solution is that it messes up transparency on the desktop if your using Compiz.

If you aren’t using Compiz or don’t have a transparent desktop background, then this works very well. For some reason, if you do have a transparent background, it prevents the transparency from working.

By: greg d

greg d — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:55:49 +0000

To hide everything from the desktop (ALL icons):

run gconf-editor, then select apps > nautilus > preferences, and then you uncheck the “show_desktop” option.

Hope that helps.

By: gaarai

gaarai — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:11:32 +0000

I’m sorry that I couldn’t offer a better solution Richard. Now, I just don’t use the Desktop that often. I created a Downloads folder and told Firefox to use that location by default, so that helps keep some of the clutter down.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:18:59 +0000

I too have the habit of allowing my desktop to get very cluttered. I was looking for a way to show/hide all the clutter. After reading your post, I decided not to bother looking any further.

What I have done instead is create a folder ~/desktop-hidden, a bash script called cleanDesktop in /usr/bin which at the moment just contains mv ~/Desktop/* ~/desktop-hidden/ Then I added a launcher for cleanDesktop.

Its not exactly what I wanted, i’m sure there will be problems with identical filenames and such likes, but it is quick and easy

By: gaarai

gaarai — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:46:09 +0000

Without knowing exactly what you’ve changed, I’m afraid that I really don’t know. I haven’t seen anything that claims to be able to do that. Can you give me more information about what you changed or point me to some sites where you got info on what to change?

By: Habib

Habib — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:16:05 +0000

heyy

well, i kinda achieved whaat u want, only i want to get rid of it

if u see my desktop, u see no icons, but if i hover my mouse pointer over it for a bit, the icons become visible for a couple of seconds, and then back to being hidden unless i place the cursor over them again.

i want my icons back to normal again, any idea how???