[kio-extras] [Bug 451408] File preview on some locally-mounted drives (NTFS, NFS, SMB) inappropriately use remote preview settings

[FeepingCreature]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=451408

--- Comment #42 from FeepingCreature <default_357-line at yahoo.de> ---
> You are welcome to contribute, as you do with your comment or more constructively with code review or code.

Let me explain why I don't care to contribute. Paradoxically, it's because KDE
is too good.

Firefox was in a weird sort of usability maximum pre version 57. They were held
back by their UI architecture from making improvements; XUL was perceived as a
millstone holding Firefox tethered to an outdated and overflexible model, and
anyway JS based addons should be enough for anyone. So they broke compatibility
with TabMixPlus, and usability took a massive dive off a cliff for me and never
recovered.

Does that mean they were wrong to break addon compatibility to try to compete
with Chrome? Should Quantum be reverted? I don't think so, because ergonomic
maxima are always subjective. I have a bunch of patches on my local system for
KDE apps; for instance, I have Gwenview set up so that it automatically
fullscreens images on fullscreen mode and switches back to folder view on
un-fullscreen. This workflow represents a very specific sort of "desire path"
in usability, but I have zero way of proving that it fulfills a general need.
Analogously, "just show thumbnails for absolutely everything" is a patch that's
hyperfocused on the fact that I store practically all my data on a local NAS,
but this is not the "normal" way in which network drives are used. Or maybe it
is! I don't know? Instead of a patch, should I make a usability study? Should I
go study design theory and user psychology?

KDE is for me at a local maxima in usability, at least in part because the way
it currently works represents a well-worn groove in my mind and workflow. Any
change taken will move it from this maximum, and that may be the correct
decision! As with the classic story about fighter plane seats, there is no such
thing as an average user, and I realize that I'm further from average than
most. As such, I don't care about getting this patch upstreamed, because I am
not even convinced that you are wrong to have the settings in upstream the way
they are; this is not a bug, it's a varying requirement. However, the beauty of
opensource is that for software that is not as rapidly developed as Firefox, we
can easily keep our local collections of patches going. Hence you should take
my comment purely as grumbling - and merely an attempt to save a small bit of
time for people who feel the same way. :)

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