Ubuntu 19.04 comes with gnome shell extension: "desktop icons". In previous versions of Ubuntu desktop icons was provided by nautilus, but new version of nautilus (3.32) lost desktop icons functionality.
Create a copy of all files on desktop to another directory
Delete all files on desktop (that have been safely the copied)
Move the copies back to desktop
Note: if you just move all files to a different directory then back it "remembers" their previous location which is pretty annoying. Yet new instances of files are inserted in a way that's intuitive (to me at least).
Obviously this method is suboptimal because I've noticed that in 19.04 any file operations through nautilus are now painfully slow, particularly involving the desktop (note that my hardware is less than a year old and using SSDs, so it's not that). Have large monitors though, my instinct is that it could be those.
And while I'm complaining I do not think it's cool that my desktop changes when I show/hide hidden system files (files beginning is ".", toggled using Ctrl-h). Is that behaviour that anyone wants? On their desktop?
At this point it's not possible.
Ubuntu 19.04 comes with gnome shell extension: "desktop icons". In previous versions of Ubuntu desktop icons was provided by nautilus, but new version of nautilus (3.32) lost desktop icons functionality.
Unfortunately looks like extension's author decided not to implement any sorting/rearranging features: https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons/issues/98
Can hack around:
Note: if you just move all files to a different directory then back it "remembers" their previous location which is pretty annoying. Yet new instances of files are inserted in a way that's intuitive (to me at least).
Obviously this method is suboptimal because I've noticed that in 19.04 any file operations through nautilus are now painfully slow, particularly involving the desktop (note that my hardware is less than a year old and using SSDs, so it's not that). Have large monitors though, my instinct is that it could be those.
And while I'm complaining I do not think it's cool that my desktop changes when I show/hide hidden system files (files beginning is ".", toggled using Ctrl-h). Is that behaviour that anyone wants? On their desktop?
I wrote iconic that sorts desktop icons by name:
In addition to sorting by name you can sort:
Additional benefits: