Review Request: Add a confirmation window when emptying the trash

[Parker Coates]

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 06:22, Tom Albers wrote:
> Op Tuesday 30 March 2010 12:14 schreef u:
>> I agree with Tom, this is bloat.  By default it is a 3 step action to
>> permanently delete a file via the trash can.
>> 1) invoke Move to Trash action
>> 2) Confirm moving to Trash
>> 3) Empty Trash
>>
>> You are adding 4) Confirm Empty Trash, because the user might have already
>> disabled 2).  This makes the default path to permanently delete something a 4
>> step process which is excessively cautious.

It's not really a four step process as emptying the trash is
amortised. So it's more like 2+(2/n), where n is the how full the
trash gets before it is emptied. Other users don't ever empty the
trash (and let KDE automatically delete items when needed), in which
case you're down to 2 steps again. :)

Also consider that the typical use case isn't to move a file to the
trash and immediately go to empty the trash, so it's not like the user
is exposed to the two confirmations right in a row. In fact there may
be months in between.

>> If the user checks "Don't ask me again" on 4), then we are back to a 2 step
>> process again, and your next patch adds 5) Confirm Confirm Empty Trash - this
>> can go on forever.

I don't really think we need a slippery slope here. ;)

>> If you consider the Delete action as well, this remains a 2 step action to
>> permanently delete
>> 1a) File->Delete
>> 2a) Confirm deletion
>>
>> So considering that the user might configure Delete instead of Trash in Dolphin
>>  and might disable 2a), your patch still does not add any additional safety, at
>> the cost of making the default configuration excessively cautious.

I don't really understand this part of your argument. It seems like
saying "Since the user might remove the safety guarding from their
lawnmower and may choose to mow the lawn in sandals, adding protective
guarding doesn't add any additional safety." Of course safety features
which are deliberately disable don't add safety, but a user who
disables such protection has to be assumed to know what they're doing.

*Personally*, I think a confirmation when emptying the trash makes
sense, because as Ingo said irreversible, destructive actions
generally require confirmation dialogs. I think providing users with
an extra level of protection against accidental deletions is worth the
cost of an extra, one-time confirmation for users who don't want such
protection.

Is the objection just that an additional two clicks over the life of a
KDE installation is too much of a burden, or are there other concerns?

Parker