Too may ways to select files

[Jens Dagerbo]

Hi,

This topic comes up with some frequency. While I agree that having all active, 
they are all optional plugins, to be enabled/disabled at the users leisure.

New File - this abomination just has to go. The functionality is better 
accessed through the menu, and the whole plugin just screams out for a 
rewrite (have a look at the code..) KDevelop-4 scope. FileCreate (this), 
Project templates, code snippets, Abbrev... all share concepts but not code. 
All implemented differently.

File Groups - I always found it awful, but the basic idea is sound - grouping 
of files in an arbitrary and/or rulebased fashion. Needs a rewrite. Been in 
my todo since ages.

File Tree - this is meant to display the project contents and has overlapping 
responsibilities with the project manager display. In fact, for some project 
types, this IS the "project management" display. I imagine with a new (KDev4) 
look at project management, this could be made superfluous.

File List - this does overlap with the Window menu, that's true. But the thing 
to remove is IMHO the window menu. It has much fewer features and scales 
worse. The need for this list should be obvious when you have more than half 
a dozen documents open - a tabbar becomes very annoying to use (I run without 
the tabbar in fact)

File Selector - this is a network transperant file browser. Powerful, generic 
but with very little direct integration into KDevelop (it's a very shallow 
port of a Kate widget), but if you want to open a pdf document off of a ftp 
server, this is the tool to use (if you want to do it inside KDevelop).

Again, Project - Project options -> plugins. You'll find all of them optional. 
A year ago I implemented a way to let the user decide which of these should 
be loaded at project creation.. but the whole thing sorta morphed into 
Alexanders plugin profiles idea and this feature was essentially lost.


// jens

On Tuesday 06 September 2005 11:41, Vladimir Prus wrote:
> Hello!
>
> Looking at fresh project in KDevelop, I see at least 4 left-side tool
> windows for selecting files:
>
>   - "File selector"
>   - "File list"
>   - "File groups"
>   - "File tree"
>
> there also somewhat related "New file".
>
> Isn't that way too much?
> - I fail to see any big difference between "file selector" and "file tree".
> - The "File groups" window is empty by default, and only takes space.
> Maybe, it should be just hidden initially, and only shown if user defines
> some groups via menu command? Or, probably, the same effect can be achieved
> by editing filter to "File selector"
> - The "File list" probably is not needed at all, since "Window" menu
> provides access to all the files already.
>
> - The "New file" window is not very needed, because the dialog shown on
>   "new file" command provides the same types of files. Tweaking that dialog
>   a bit will allow it to show icons, just like "New file" tool window does.
>   (Although at it stands now, of 10 icons 8 are identical, which makes
>    me wonder if icons are good there)
>
> Cleaning this up will leave just a single window ("file selector"), and
> reduce clutter. Is this planned or was it ever considered?
>
> - Volodya
>
>
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