KListView renaming - Usability questions

[Andreas Hartmetz]

On Saturday 16 June 2007 17:34:20 Rafael Fernández López wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> First of all, sorry for cross-posting this mail. But I need it to arrive as
> well as Developers and Usability people.
>
> I am planning to commit KListView this weekend. Probably at the beginning
> of the next week. It is still at Dolphin, and will remain there, but since
> I have plans to move it someday to kdeui when has been enough tested, I
> would like to ask a few things.
>
> 1) Developers: What name should the class has ? As you know, it is
> everything except a list view. The thing is that inherits QListView. What's
> true is that if you don't enable categorizing or you ask it to be a list,
> it will do everything exactly as a QListView, since it has been thought to
> replace all the QListViews that you want, and add extra functionality
> (categorizing). So, mainly: it is the same as a QListView, but it will let
> you categorize items too. What name should it has ?
>
Would it be possible to split "the usual KDE extras" (if any) from the 
categorization feature? We'd have a KListView and a 
KCategorizedListView/KCategoryListView (better names welcome) that inherits 
KListView.
This would have no immediate code size benefits or anything like that (quite 
the opposite), but don't forget that people might want to subclass KListView. 
My experience, as little as there is, tells me that it's easier to subclass a 
simple class than a complex one.
It also feels a bit random to stuff features into the standard list view.

> 2) Usability people and Developers: I have been thinking for a while about
> usability. We could even suggest something like this to Qt. Or take our way
> if we want. It seems ruphy and davigno have been thinking of adding some
> "shortcuts" when hovering over elements on file manager. If you are over a
> file or folder, small icons appear over it, to rename it for example. I
> don't think this is a bad idea, but that made me think of handicapped
> people. We could provide a really interface for them (well and for users
> who like speed with kbd too). My suggestion is something like:
>
> - Click = Space: Action. If we click/space on a folder once, it opens and
> shows its contents. If we click/space on a sound file, it becomes played.
> If we click/space on an image / pdf whatever, it is shown.
> - Ctrl + Click = Ctrl + Space: Selection. As well as Ctrl + Rubberband with
> mouse.
> - Ctrl + Double Click = Ctrl + 2 * Space: Rename file.
>
> What do you think ?
>
Quite cool. Could you also make it possible to start selection by starting a 
drag in an empty area? When I really don't want to put down the coffee mug to 
reach for the keyboard :)
>
> Bye,
> Rafael Fernández López.