[KDE Usability] Review Request: Add a confirmation window when emptying the trash

[Parker Coates]

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 19:09, Diego Moya wrote:
>
> On 1 April 2010 00:09, David Faure wrote:
>>
>> Short of reading the user's mind, we have no way of knowing if the user is
>> deleting a big file (or empty the trash) in order to free some disk space
>> or "just because".
>>
>> (BTW I do argue that the main use case for emptying the trash _is_ making
>> more disk space, given that there is no other good reason or incentive to do
>> it, but since neither of us can prove this one way or the other, I'm happy for
>> us to give up this line of argumentation.).
>
>
> Why is the user forced to manually empty the trash when more space is
> needed?

For KDE users it mostly isn't. The KDE trash supports both limiting
trash to a certain size and limiting items in it to a certain age.

> Shouldn't the computer make that step automatically, just assuming
> that everything found in the trash can was put there by the user in the
> first place because it's no longer useful?

I know a guy who uses the trash to store items he's not sure if he
wants to save permanently or not. Once while fixing his computer, I
offered to empty his trash for him and he almost freaked out as he had
"some good stuff in there". :)

> Is there a single good reason to have an "empty trash can" action at all?
> What is the user need that it covers?

Some users "need" to empty their trash at the end of the week and
having an "Empty Trash" action for them is much friendlier than making
them Ctrl+A, Del.

The concept of a trash has been around for over a decade and users
have built up habits surrounding it. Even if those habits aren't
necessarily logical, I think they need to be considered before
changing anything about the functionality of the trash. I guess it's a
case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Currently I don't think it's
broken, because a user can easily ignore the trash entirely and it
will take care of itself.

Parker
(who just checked his trash for the first time since buying this
computer 6 months ago)