Proposal: Enhanced file system navigation for KDE application under Windows

[Mihai Dobrescu]

On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 6:12 AM, Romain Pokrzywka
<romain.pokrzywka at kdab.com> wrote:
>
> On Thursday 26 May 2011 14:12:38 Fabian Aichele wrote:
>> Hello!
>>
>>
>>
>> I've experimented with a very basic implementation of an alternate Qt file
>> system engine under Windows that uses the file system access routines of
>> the Windows Shell instead of the "ordinary" file system manipulation
>> routines that are tailored to deal with "classic" files and folders
>> residing on physical media on the local machine.
>>
>> Essentially, this would enable applications using Qt to navigate the
>> complete content of the Explorer namespace, including "virtual folders"
>> like the system control panel, but also remote network shares, or basically
>> anything that uses ITEMIDLIST data structures to interact with Windows
>> Explorer.
>>
>> As of now, I've mastered the most basic task of actually navigating a
>> folder/container hierarchy starting from a given point within the Explorer
>> namespace, so I've verified combining Qt's file engine interface and the
>> Explorer namespace is possible.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'd like to ask for some feedback if this is a priority at all for KDE on
>> Windows (personally I definitely think it is, and should be), and if
>> there's interest in such a piece of software: How closely should I stick to
>> the layout that Windows Explorer itself imposes on the file system
>> hierarchy? Should I simply replicate it, or has anyone suggestions that I
>> haven't come up with yet?
>>
>>
>>
>> With best regards,
>>
>> Fabian Aichele
>
> Hi Fabian,
>
> This can indeed be a nice feature to improve KDE support on windows, good work !
>
> I'm not really familiar about 'Explorer style navigation', but I assumed that this basically what you see when you open
> a file explorer.
> My main question is: what type of limitations are you talking about when you write "How closely should I stick to the
> layout that Windows Explorer itself imposes on the file system hierarchy? ". Is it really different from the "C:
> \foo\bar" hierarchy we normally use ?
>
> Also, does that mean you can get access to things like Libraries on Windows Vista/7 ? That would indeed be a cool thing
> to have.
>
> Now regarding your implementation and where things should go, I'm a bit undecided. On one hand, since this seems to be
> an internal modification of Qt (ie. QFileEngine), I could see it being merged upstream into Qt directly, as it is not
> really related to KDE in particular. I'm not sure either if it's even possible to have it outside the Qt code (unless
> QFileEngine supports plugins, but it doesn't afaik). However I might just have misunderstood the implementation details,
> so don't hesitate to tell me if this isn't correct.
>
> Then, as far as the browsing is concerned, QDesktopServices has the storageLocation() method which maps well known
> places to paths. I haven't given it much thoughts yet, but maybe there's something do be done there too, for example
> adding new standard places. However if those can't be mapped to a real path on disk (like libraries), then this wouldn't
> be very helpful.
>
> All in all, I like the idea, I'm just not sure of how it is implemented and thus what can be done with it. Maybe you
> could show us an example ?
>
> Cheers
> Romain
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Romain Pokrzywka | romain.pokrzywka at kdab.com | Senior Qt Software Engineer & Trainer
> Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB, a KDAB Group company
> Tel. Sweden (HQ) +46-563-540090, USA +1-866-777-KDAB(5322)
> KDAB - Qt Experts - Platform-independent software solutions
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Hi,

Please take in account also this:
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=95162