Konqueror 4

[Mark Rose]

Greetings.

> the more i look at konqueror the more i wonder if we'll be able to truly
> pull off a "browser and a manager" application. the paradigms are so
> fundamentally different .......

As just a KDE user, I don't see the paradigms as so fundamentally different. I 
see Konqueror as a visual file accessing program. What's so neat about is 
that the transport mechanism is irrelevant. I really stop noticing whether 
I'm seeing something over http, ftp, fish, etc. Some file types Konqueror can 
display natively and others it opens in external viewers. A page of 
information and links known as a website is really not fundamentally 
different than a page of links known as a directory listing or folder view. 
For me, this seamless integration between local and remote, regardless of 
transfer mechanism, known as Konqueror, is the "killer app" for KDE and 
Linux. Konqueror is an absolute joy to use. Every other file app and browser 
pales in comparison.

> one example is the location bar. it makes all the sense in the world to
> have a fully editable url bar as we do now for a browser (e.g. a web
> browser). but is it the most ergonomic thing in a file manager? hm.

I do all my non-CLI file management via the location bar. To access anything, 
I simply type where I want to go. Granted, this is definitely not novice 
friendly, but I find the sidebar a waste of screen realestate for how I go 
about things (though in cases it's obviously more convenient).

> for me, the biggest improvement targets for file management in kde4
> include:
>
>  - feedback (metadata, previews)
>  - navigation (breadcrumbing, drop zones, integrated search)
>  - covering fundamental use cases (near?) perfectly (d'n'd in konqi is
> quite poor righ tnow; this past week i painfully watched people try and
> deal with it. renaming needs to be dealt with smarter. etc...)

As a user, integrated search is fairly high on my wishlist. I find it easier 
to run 'find' in Konsole. Konqueror has a location for doing various web 
searches -- why not something similar for files?

Also, it'd be nice if locations over remote protocols where also included in 
the copy to and move to menus (and a way to increase the lists of recent 
locations to more than five items).

Regards,
Mark