Adding home folder/trash can to desktop + plea for simplicity

[Janos Dohanics]

While trying to set up KDE 4.7.2 (Kubuntu 11.10 AMD64) some seemingly
simple tasks turned out to be not so straightforward.

One of these was to add the home folder and trash can to the desktop.

After some poking around I figured out that this can be accomplished by:

- Switch to Application Launcher

- Highlight Computer in the menu

- Right click on Home/Trash

- Add to desktop

That was simple!

Then, I changed the number of desktops from 2 to 4 (my everyday OS is
FreeBSD, and I have 4 desktops there - I think that's the default
there).

Adding 2 more desktops though made the home folders and trash cans
disappear.

Repeating the above procedure to add these items had no effect, though.
Did it again - nothing.

Then, switched to another desktop - and there were 3 home folders!

Finally, I figured out that performing the above procedure on desktop
#1 will add the items to desktop #2.

What works then is (for my 4 desktops): do the procedure on desktop #n
to get the effect on desktop #n+1 - except procedure on desktop #
[highest number] to get the effect on desktop #[lowest number].

My apologies for having been a bit sarcastic - if anything, I should
learn more about KDE to get spared of frustration...

Still, as much as KDE developers deserve gratitude for an outstanding
application, I'm wondering if KDE would gain a larger following if
setup/customization would be a bit more simple, or more intuitive.

For example, an option to display settings as they appeared in KDE3?

For example, some sample configurations to choose from (which then could
be customized) or a set of sample config files?

For example, listing of options in the style of Firefox about:config -
with a pointer to explanations?

I very much appreciate the vast number of configuration options, still,
those of us on the slower side, are a bit overwhelmed and lost...

-- 
Janos Dohanics
<web at 3dresearch.com>