Polish With Mutliple Desktops

[Lukas Sabota]

Hello!
I have currently the three main ubuntu desktops installed:
ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop, and xubuntu-desktop.  Much work has
been gone into these to make them as polished as they are.
But, having multiple desktops installed currently isn't the nicest
situation.  Here are some inconsistencies between the desktops:
1)  Menus.  Just open up your main menu with more than one desktop
installed.  Go ahead.  Check out all the entries with no icons!  I have
filed bugs for all of the XFCE4 packages that icons don't show up in
GNOME, a collective bug about the GNOME icons not showing up in KDE, and
individual bugs about some KDE icons not showing up in GNOME.

I'd also live to discuss another point on menus.  Should hiding be
shared between desktops?  For example, if I hide an icon on the GNOME
desktop, should it be hidden on XFCE and KDE?  And if I unhide the icon
on KDE should it appear on XFCE and GNOME?  Is there some sort of
standard for hidden icons?
2) *~ files are respected in both Nautilus and Thunar, but they are
visible by default on KDE.  I have filed a bug for this behavior.
3) A nasty bug when using the qt-gtk engine in KDE leaves GNOME stuck
using that engine, and it can't be changed without deleting a certain
file.
4) Usplash.  Every -desktop meta package wants to install their own
usplash theme.  How can I choose the theme I want?

These are just a few things I noticed after a day of testing.  Perhaps
we should have a calling for inter-desktop testing.  Having multiple
desktops needs more polish, because it's one of the benefits on Linux:
Choice!