Can we* prettyplease do something about the KUrlNavigator?

[Thomas Lübking]

Am Saturday 20 June 2009 schrieb Maciej Pilichowski:

> When you on tab (in general) the whole content looks different.
sure, but therefore there's a tab bar and not just a line of text on a plain 
window background. (Peter just changed that a bit - now a lineedit frame (no 
bg) pops up on hovering the NavigatorBar (the entire widgit including empty 
space)

> Ok, so it is not similarity even, but reusing the icon (I don't have
> undo icons on toolbars so I didn't notice it). Sure, it is actually a
> bug, icons/terms should not be reused.
Fixed in the recent update as well (now shows a checkmar instead)

> Solution: make empty space inactive.
Problem: with the current layout there would be no easy or obvious way to 
enter the lineedit mode (as the button that leaves the mode isn't available) 
except a checkable rmb popupmenu item

> It is not input area in breadcrumb mode (strange name if you ask
> me ;-D).
ratm it turns into one if you click into empty space, what's pretty similar to 
a normal lineedit behavior (ignoring the visual aspect)
And it's even a silly name, but i don#t know any other or better. If anyone 
has one, i'll buy it.

> > Because a lineedit creates more attachment to the below iconview
> > than some sort of label (though this might be conditioned)
>
> I don't even see there is any relation (visual) with lineedit and
> files pane.
That might be matter of conditionig (i.e. "training") and various filter lines 
etc. and basicaly any browser work this way ("lineedit above changes content 
below" - simple rule)

> > The point is that at this very moment it's not a "normal" lineedit
> > (they do not contain links) and the text item you might be about to
> > click will actually trigger some action (just as a link)

> But currently it is normal lineedit (KDE4.3. beta2). 
I think we're not discussing the same situation.

I want the crumbs to visually rather behave like links.
I do certainly not intend links (including underlining -or whatever 
indication- or interpretation) in the lineedit mode.

I however stumbled across this on James' mail - the behavior is different 
between KDE3 and KDE4 and (honestly, sorry) i do not like the Gtk solution at 
all. Many ppl. (even in this very thread) do not realize on can have a 
lineedit mode there and (now, this /is/ an insult and intended to be) the 
button stack between a toolbar and an iconview simply looks crap. period.
(hey, GNOME bashing isn't forbidden yet, is it?) ;-P

So (back on topic) i'd really like to push the whole UrlNavigator towards a 
lineedit with integrated "click-to-change" functionality and an alomost 
unnotable transition between the different behaviors. (see the conversation w/ 
Matthew - i guess it can be done, but some aspects -to solve the warping 
issue- will require testing on various input devices)

In a second step on could think about replacing all current plain 
UrlComboBoxes with this widget and add the "can be used with mouse only" 
feature everywhere w/o loosing any functionality of a powerful keyboard driven 
input or adding complexity in handling the widget (to change modes)

Therefore imho it would however be crucial to have this look different from 
"empty area with some text and a few triangles" and visually stress the input 
aspect to make it (easy) detectable

Skål