KFileDialog: "Parent Folder" button

[James Richard Tyrer]

Aurélien Gâteau wrote:
> Peter Penz wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Pretty much Gwenview and Dolphin users requested having a kind of "Go 
>> Up"/"Parent Folder" functionality for the URL navigator.
>>
>> I've just committed a patch on trunk and it seems to work quite well. 
>> But now the "Parent Folder"-button in KFileDialog is not required 
>> anymore, as this button is already part of the URL navigator.
> 
> It's definitely better with this button, but I remember we had a 
> discussion about adding a button to reveal the hidden part of the url.
> You can find this discussion here:
> 
> http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-usability&m=121175040002025&w=2
> 
> I still think it would be a nicer solution than the up button, because 
> it provides a way for the user to know where he actually is.
> 
I would tend to agree, however ... (tm) It is not a good idea to 
encourage the use of the $HOME directory.

OTOH, it would be an acceptable idea to always show a long list starting 
with either "/" (root) or KGlobalSettings::documentPath() (a.k.a "My 
Documents" which is $HOME for those users that insist on using $HOME -- 
my $HOME directory had too much junk in it to use it for "My Documents" 
[which I call "User Files"]).  Also, KGlobalSettings::documentPath(), 
should automatically be added to Places if it is set to a directory 
other than $HOME.

But, you still need the "Up" button in KUrlNavigator

Also to consider is the possibility of integrating with XDG-user-dirs so 
that these were automatically added to "Places".  Remember that the 
sys-admin can configure this with the: "/etc/xdg/user-dirs.defaults or 
the user can modify with: $HOME/.config/user-dirs.dirs.  This could 
replace the [Paths] section in "kdeglobals" for better desktop 
integration.  There is the unfortunate problem with the use of the term 
'documents' which we appear to have copied from MS-Windows.  We do need 
to replace it with "User Files" or find another term for text and 
wordprocessing documents to avoid the current confusion as it exists in 
MS-Windows.

-- 
JRT