KIO slaves wizard

[slaout]

Le dim 07/11/2004 à 16:16, Dik Takken a écrit : 
> On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, slaout wrote:
> > A complete explanation with screenshots is available here:
> > http://slaout.linux62.org/kde-wishs/kio-wizard/
> 
> I might have another way to quickly access other KIO slaves, like this:
> 
> We split the location bar into two parts, the protocol part and the 
> address part. The protocol part is a drop-down combo that lists available 
> KIO slaves like file:/ fish:// ftp:// etc. We could even show a brief 
> description right next to each entry. The actual location bar will only 
> contain the path within the selected KIO slave.

It's basically what was exposed here by pipitas :
http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/700
I was replying to its blog entry but I never have been read :-/

He also explain the lot of problems this solution has.
I don't believe in it (even if before the wizard solution I was 100% for
splitting the address bar with a combobox).

> This solution has one problem (and maybe more), you can't select the whole 
> location string anymore. You can select www.google.com, but not 
> http://www.google.com.

Yes, it add some (usability and accessibility) problems and all "solutions"
are more hacks than anything else (like adding a button to select all
protocol+address, make it configurable, ignore the combobox if a protocol
was entered in the address)...
All those problems find uggly solutions, that cause new problems... and so
on.

> This could be solved by leaving the location bar untouched and popup a KIO 
> combo when the user hovers the mouse pointer over the protocol part of 
> the location string, much like the hover close buttons on Konqueror's 
> tabs. This will leave everything as it is now, unless you hover your mouse 
> over the left end of the location bar. Manually typing full URL's in the 
> address bar will still work. Also, it will be possible to make the combo 
> optional. Power users may not like it.

Yes, that's yet another (good) idea.
However only Konqueror (and eventually Open/Save dialog) woud have this
"popup widget". Not very consistent and expectable.
And what about if I want to select the first characters of the URL?
The popup combo will... popup and... we would need to find another hack.

BTW, tabs popup close button also have usability problems.

> It might be convenient if the drop-down combo lists the most used 
> protocols first, followed by a complete listing of all available KIO 
> slaves. Clicking on the combo with the help-pointer should show the full 
> manual of the selected KIO slave.

Perhaps I'm alone to think the wizard icon+dialog is a good solution?
I find it easy (it's just a toolbar button, so it's already configurable
for peoples who want to remove it) and don't add problems that should be
hacked... It's also self-training and unobtrusive since usability of
Konqueror doesn't change and users can learn the syntax of protocols to
recall them down later (faster than selecting in a combo or a wizard).
And moreover it would be easy to implement too.

<<
Unfortunaly, I willn't have time to implement it for KDE 3.4.
It's why I posted on this list: to find a person agreeing to develop this.
In last resort, I could free time to start it.
>>

Sébastien Laoût.