Dolphin file manager usability

[Peter Penz]

Hi Luca,

[...]
> >> Other views
> >>  1) Why not to have a grouping in the column view?
> >>  2) Why not to have a grouping in the detail view?
> >
> > This is more a technical problem than a design decision.
>
> Ok, but this discussion is a 'wish list', so let's imagine that we can
> implement it without problems. How to do it?

You came up with the suggestion, so I hoped that you have some input how the 
column view and detail view should look like with grouping :-) Only after we 
know what you expect from this feature, we can discuss implementation 
details...

Regarding the implementation: Rafael mentioned that he wants to implement the 
categorization also on the list mode of KCategorizedView, but the details 
view and the column view are not derived from KCategorizedView at all...

> > Do you
> > also expect having headers between each group? Or just any other kind of
> > visual separation between the groups?
>
> Some separation, yes. How? I don't know, but if you like the idea we can
> discuss about is.

For the column view - although not derived from KCategorizedView - I see the 
possibility to use Rafaels KCategorizedView in the list mode as column 
representation (QColumnView::createColumn()). This means we would have 
separate group headers...

For the details view I have no clue how the grouping should look like and in 
this case we cannot use KCategorizedView at all... Having column headers + 
group headers combined might be very irritating. Maybe drawing very small 
separators between groups would be enough already. Any thoughts?

> I used a MacOS computer. I enjoyed it, but for some feature Linux
> (Gnome&KDE) missed me. KDE4 seems to me MacOS inspired, but MacOS is not
> fully user friendly for a Linux/Windows user with little time to spend in
> front of a computer, in my opinion.
> Generally, I would avoid to force the user to look for a menu when he
> acting a basic file action. Actual Dolphin toolbar is maybe too short.

I don't see grouping as basic file action, so it should not be in the default 
toolbar. Konqueror, Krusader, Nautilus, Thunar, ... cannot do a grouping at 
all... Don't get me wrong: I love the grouping feature, but I see the default 
use case that it's activated once for specific directories and not changed 
constantly.

Best regards,
Peter