[kde-linux] Kget "My Downloads" [Is this MS Windows?]

[Kevin Krammer]

On Tuesday, 2013-04-23, James Tyrer wrote:
> On 04/21/2013 12:40 PM, Kevin Krammer wrote:

> > It might not have been that way originally. Some things get added
> > later on due to changes in the environment, e.g. XDG based paths
> > becoming available, or original implementors might not have been
> > aware of standard paths and somebody else added it, etc.
> > 
> > One would basically have to traverse the whole commit history in
> > order to understand why something is implemented the way it is.
> 
> It does appear to be related to XDG and there is the tale.  In
> kget/core/kget.cpp a default directory of $XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR was added.
> However, although the coder appears to be skilled at writing C++, he was
> not skilled at actual programing.  He hard coded the name of this
> "Group" as: "My Downloads" and chose an inappropriate _global_ icon, but
> none for that group.

Hardcoding as in specifying a string literal or in not passing it through a 
translation function?
The latter would of course be a mistake, the former is a common thing for 
labels. If there is a facility to query for standard visualization hints then 
this can be pointed out, no developer is constantly up to date with the whole 
set of available APIs.

> Rather than using the name of the
> $XDG_DOWNLOAD_DIR directory as the default for the name of the "Group"
> and the directory's icon, if one was chosen, or otherwise:
> "folder-download" as the default icon.  As well as using "folder" as the
> global default icon for the "Groups".

Not sure what you mean with Group, but using the folder icon for a folder 
sounds sensible to me.
But again, if there is an API that can be queried for visualization hints such 
as icons for a special interface item then this might have been added at a 
later point, or the developer might not have been aware of its existance if it 
already did.

> >> Does this mean that KDE-4 is already being abandoned by the
> >> developers?
> > 
> > No.
> 
> Rhetorical question, and not really to be taken literally.

Well, yes, however people sometimes read things like that out of context, e.g. 
through a link to the message in the archive.
Clarification is needed if statements are similar to those known to cause 
misconceptions.

> I may have acted strange in the past few years due to a stroke, but I
> still have SJS (Steve Jobs Syndrome) and I was born that way.  I just
> have this strange idea that things should work very well, not just 80%
> to 90% and I would like to see KDE develop a release process that could
> produce a 99% working product as well as producing new nifty features.

Products. Plural :)
Otherwise someone not understanding the conceptional difference between vendor 
and product could fall into one of the common traps, e.g. referring to all 
products as a single entity.

It is hard for us who do understand to imagine that somebody couldn't but 
there are tons of people out there how refer to their operating system as 
"Word" ;-)

Anyway, release managment, like any other area of work at KDE, is open for 
anyone who wants to contribute. 

Cheers,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Krammer, KDE developer, xdg-utils developer
KDE user support, developer mentoring
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