Ubuntu, please improve the trash can!!

Have you ever tried to drag a file or folder from the desktop (or any nautilus window) to the Trash in Ubuntu? If you have, you might have found it challenging because the item being dragged often completely obscures the very small Trash Can icon making it difficult to know where the Trash Can is.

The screen shot snippets below depict what I am referring to (the mouse pointer wasn't captured in the screen shot - imagine it over the "Test File").

"Test File" being dragged to Trash



"Test File" dragged over Trash

Where's the Trash Can? I'm sure most users can figure this out, and, with minimal care and dexterity, it is possible to drop the "Test File" in the Trash (Extra tricky when using a laptop's track pad or eraser head). Of course there is the obvious work around of just using the delete key or even the command line, but dragging and dropping an item into the trash should be easy.

Mac OS X does a good job making this easier by expanding the Trash icon to a size that is larger than the item being discarded. Ubuntu/Gnome could implement this (should be easier with Compiz-Fusion) but this isn't the only solution. Another approach could be to make the item-to-be-discarded semi-transparent so it is possible to see where it will be dropped. I'm sure other solutions could be devised as well.

The Windows approach of placing the Recycle Bin on the desktop would seem to solve this problem too, except that it introduces a more annoying problem of having to move application windows away to make the Recycle Bin even visible. So if even nothing is done to improve the ease of dropping files into the Trash, Ubuntu/Gnome still has a better solution.