[dot] The Road to KDE 4: Dolphin and Konqueror

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1172721427/

From: Troy Unrau <troy.unrau at gmail.com>
Dept: one-tool-for-one-job-philosophy
Date: Wednesday 28/Feb/2007, @19:57

The Road to KDE 4: Dolphin and Konqueror
========================================

   As some of you who monitor the KDE news sphere may have noticed,
there has been a recent addition to the kdebase module. The Dolphin File
Manager [http://enzosworld.gmxhome.de/] has been added to complement
Konqueror's browsing capabilities. Read on for more information about
this new File Manager and its relationship to Konqueror and the rest of
KDE.

     A brief history lesson so you can get an overview of how file
management has evolved with KDE: In KDE 1.x, KFM (the KDE File Manager)
was born. It was a very rudimentary, very basic file manager with
limited web browsing capabilities. Below is a shot of KFM browsing files
(from the kde.org screenshot archive) so you get an idea of how it
operated.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/vol10_1x_kfm.png]
     While it's obvious that KDE has come a long way since KDE 1.x, it
is still easy to see which parts of KFM have inspired Konqueror's
contemporary design, which was introduced as part of KDE 2.0. KParts
technology revolutionized the way we used our File Manager application,
turning Konqueror into a full fledged web-browser, and more. Here's a
shot of Konqueror from KDE 3.5.6, and you can see that while the user
interface is much improved, the same basic concepts remain visible from
the KFM days.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/vol10_356_konq.png]
     Konqueror really shined as a beacon of KDE technologies in the KDE
2.x and 3.x series, showcasing the best parts of KDE technologies.
Konqueror showcased the power of KDE's IO slaves, allowing true network
transparency when managing your files over FTP, fish (SSH), HTTP, and
much more. Konqueror is so advanced that you can enter an FTP URL into a
HTML upload form and it just works as you would logically expect it to
(as far as I know, it is the only browser which allows this). It also
featured KParts, which allowed it to embed just about any sort of viewer
required, directly into the interface, embedding things like KPDF
[http://kpdf.kde.org/], KWord [http://koffice.kde.org/kword/], image
viewers, and most importantly, the ever-improving KHTML
[http://www.khtml.info/] page renderer. This is important, since even
Konqueror's icon views were implemented as pluggable parts, making just
about any kind of icon view possible.

     So, Konqueror is a really powerful tool that can do just about
everything you and your system can possibly want, and with this power
comes unlimited configurability and extensibility through control
modules and plugins. However, what often happens in Konqueror when you
are browsing the internet is that Konqueror still wants to behave as a
file manager and not a web browser. This split behavior is easily
noticed through elements such as toolbar buttons. For example: the "Up"
arrow is still available on the toolbar even when browsing Google Maps,
but it is totally irrelevant in this context; another is having a web
bookmarks toolbar visible while sorting icons in your /home folder.

     Introducing Dolphin [http://enzosworld.gmxhome.de/]: Dolphin is a
new File Manager for KDE 4 which is dedicated 100% to file management,
and is not intended to be a one-size-fits-all tool as Konqueror
currently attempts. It is intended to optimize your file management
related tasks, and present an easy to use file manager for casual KDE
use. That doesn't mean it won't be powerful or configurable, only that
Dolphin is being built for a single purpose.

     Dolphin isn't a total rewrite however, and is not intended to
compete with Konqueror, rather the two applications will be
complimentary. Dolphin uses the already existing IO slave facilities of
the KDE platform to perform remote or local file management, meaning
that it will be capable of doing all of the 'remote management' type
activities that Konqueror has already matured. Dolphin just won't show
web pages or PDF files embedded as Konqueror does.

     And Konqueror will benefit from Dolphin as well. Konqueror is not
going to disappear for KDE 4, although its user interface may yet see
some adjustments as its primary utility will not as the default file
manager. Of course, Konqueror will still be available for file
management tasks as it has been in the past - there will be no changes
in this regard. Changes made to KDE's icon view parts through the
development of Dolphin will also help to improve Konqueror's icon views,
as they both share these libraries. As stated before, Konqueror loads
all of these icon views as pluggable libraries called KParts -
improvements to the underlying KParts automatically benefit all users.

     So lets take a look at Dolphin and Konqueror as they currently
exist in KDE's Subversion repository [http://websvn.kde.org/]. Please
keep in mind that these snapshots represent developer work-in-progress
builds and, while publicly available, are not representative of the
final appearance or intended functionality of either applications, nor
are they recommended for everyday use.

     Konqueror currently looks something like this, and the icon views
only half work. The problem is that these file views are simply direct
ports of the KDE 3 codebase. Konqueror will eventually receive the same
fileviews that Dolphin is currently using.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/vol10_4x_konq.png]
     You can tell from Konqueror's default configuration of using tabs,
and various other related interface choices that Konqueror is now mostly
a web browser that also happens to do file management. While Konqueror's
roots are truly derive from file management, it is more frequently
operated as a browser these days by many KDE users. Konqueror does a
great job as a web browser, underpinned by the fact it now implements
CSS 3
[http://www.css3.info/khtml-356-is-the-most-css3-compliant-of-all/],
including the highly-anticipated 'opacity' tags.

     So while Konqueror continues to improve as a browser, it will
continue to maintain KDE 3.x file management standards, providing a
baseline functionality, and will be improved as code is shared between
itself and Dolphin.

     Dolphin is a whole different animal. It is a 'real' file manager -
it's interface has a lot of elements which are specific to a file
manager and cannot really be justified in a browser. This is best
demonstrated with a screenshot.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/vol10_4x_dolphin_breadcrumb.png]
     Notice the implemention of a 'breadcrumb'-style directory selector,
which works well for file management in a lot of cases, but is totally
useless if you need to enter a URL when using a browser, and so becomes
the sort of widget which is only useful when dealing with file
hierarchies. Breadcrumb widgets may be familiar to anyone who has used
OS X's Finder or GNOME's Nautilus. Another comment about the above
screenshot: clicking and holding a breadcrumb item displays a list of
directories that are at the same level as the one clicked, allowing for
more efficient navigation.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/vol10_4x_dolphin_alt.png]
     However, using the breadcrumb widget is not essential, and if you
are more comfortable with a Konqueror-style location bar, this mode of
operation is easily configurable, as seen above. In fact, much of
Dolphin is configurable, illustrated below.


 [http://static.kdenews.org/dannya/vol10_4x_dolphin_options.png]
     This screenshot evidences the amount of effort KDE is spending
trying to make configuration layouts sane while still providing as many
options as reason allows. Also note the improved appearance of the
configuration dialogs in KDE 4. Of course, this is going to be revisited
somewhat as the dialog is too tall for some screens at the moment. After
the Oxygen visual components go live, this dialog will be even easier on
the eyes.

     So, Dolphin's functionality is not entirely new, other than it
presents itself in a new way. It can be seen as a hybrid between the
power of Konqueror and the structure of Nautilus. Dolphin still builds
on a strong KDE base, reusing existing technologies like KIO slaves and
so forth. Right-click actions that were available in Konqueror will
still be mostly present (except that Dolphin will necessarily load files
externally instead of using embedding viewers). And Konqueror can now
improve its web browsing experience even more, doing so without losing
the file browsing support that has been there since KDE 2.0.

     When KDE 4 is released, Dolphin will be configured as the default
application for the local file:/ protocol, as well as the default file
manager listed in the applications menu. Konqueror will ship as the
default web browser, and will still be usable as a file manager to those
that prefer the historical lifestyle. Users of KDE will have the ability
to set the default file browser, much like how KDE 3.x can use
third-party applications such as Krusader as the default file manager.
Stay tuned for more information as Dolphin and KDE evolve towards 4.0.