KDE is not an OS platform... (And neither is Gnome)

[nf2]

On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:46 AM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> On November 2, 2009, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
>> On Monday 02 November 2009, nf2 wrote:
>> > On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Stefan Majewsky <majewsky at gmx.net>
>> > wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>
>> > > KFilePlacesModel in fact looks more versatile to me than the GVFS
>> > > mounts.
>> >
>> > If you - for instance - use a KDE application on Gnome it doesn't help
>> > how versatile this model is. It just sucks that it's different, there
>> > are things missing, the naming of the items is different, the icons,
>> > the ordering and so on... when you click on "Network", something
>> > completely different appears. If you want to work with this system,
>> > this kind of individualism is as useful as a chocolate teapot.
>> >
>> > The same thing is true the other way round - for Gtk+ apps on KDE, of
>> > course...
>>
>> So, IOW, your patch makes KDE apps work better in a Gnome environment ?
>> Doesn't this give us an advantage over Gnome apps, which don't support the
>> same when running in a KDE environment ?
>> Could this be also useful for KDE on Mac and Windows ? I.e. do the "places"
>>  or how it is called which appear in finder in the left bar appear in
>>  Dolphin or our file dialog somewhere ? If not, do Norberts patches make
>>  this possible ? I guess there's something similar for Windows ?
>
> on Windows and Mac we should be using the "native" file dialogs, so that's a
> non-issue.

Unfortunately KFilePlacesView is embedded by some applications. Not
only Dolphin. So just replacing the file-dialogs doesn't cover
everything. Therefore a multi-backend approach for KFilePlacesModel
wouldn't be a bad thing for portability.

>
> on Unix and Linux we should be harmonizing based on OS level standards.
>
> we could harmonize what a "places view" means on Linux/Unix without
> bastardizing the KIO layer (or GIO) in the process
>

Well - difficult. It's probably hard to get an agreement for a common style...

The KDE places:

* Home
* Network -> remote:/// (network bookmarks + Windows Network)
* Root -> /
* Trash
[harware drives]
[bookmarks]

(and the order, visibility of all items can be changed by users)


The Gnome places:

* [username] -> $HOME
* Desktop
* File System -> /
* Network -> network:/// (Windows Network...)
[hardware drives] + [network mounts]
* Trash
[bookmarks] (only this part can be reorderd, edited by users)


Pretty sucks for usability, because almost every single item is different.

And it's of course VFS related in both cases:

* remote:/// on KDE
* the network mounts and network:/// on Gnome/Gtk+.

So my approach of desktop adaptive places models and VFS
implementations isn't that terrible idea I still think. Of course we
would also need Gtk+ file-choosers to adopt the KDE style.

Regards,
Norbert