Review Request: Proposal to add a 'lock toggle button' to filter bar to prevent clearing of filter when navigating to a different folder

[Stuart Citrin]

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This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/107392/
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(Updated Dec. 20, 2012, 6:53 p.m.)


Review request for Dolphin and KDE Usability.


Changes
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1. I was well aware 3rd patch failed on previous.  What works in git does not work on this site...I am guessing that each sequential patch needs to have the same set of files even if no changes on some of the files.  (Had run out of time to move forward....was trying to get back to it).
2. git rebase does not always work and I have no desire to spend hours figuring out why. 
3. The close button doesn't have a keyboard shortcut, thus implementation is simpler...why no outer container.   The previous change of Ctl-I shortcut from toggling the visibility of the filterbar to being a  'show only/put focus into the filterbar'  button eliminated any keyboard only way of hiding the filterbar. That said,  I would say it was probably a positive move forward since....... 1. now Ctl-I sort of acts like Ctl-J or Ctl-I in an internet browser   2. Not being able to hide the filterbar is not a big deal since it does not take up a lot of real estate.
4. Included is a complete patch against the tip..or master.  This should (I hope) be clean.  Still needed are the icons which have been supplied elsewhere in the thread.  You probably know, but recent change in master requires (re)running kbuildsyscoca4, or else a newly bult Dolphin will crash.....nothing to do my changes.  
5. If you wish to go with mouse only, no keyboard capability, the implementation should be trivia...a toggle button and a callback. Sorry I have put all I wish to into this at this point. You have permission to borrow any lines of code and to delete my copyright statements if you so need to.


Description
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I wrote a quick add-on for the Dolphin filter bar.   It is a button which prevents the filter text from clearing when navigating to a different folder. 

Why this might be needed:

This is an attempt to resolve the following usability conflict: 

If one navigates to a different folder, the filter is automatically cleared since one does not want a situation where someone forgets a filter is applied and then doesn't understand why all the files within a folder are not appearing.(current behavior) 
versus: 
A user might want to keep a filter while navigating an arbitrary set of folders, but is unable to, since the filter is automatically cleared upon navigation 

The implementation to try to resolve this conflict is as follows: 

1. A lock filter toggle button is added to the right side of the filter bar. 
2. If the lock filter button is clicked(on), then if the user navigates away from the current folder, the filter is not cleared. If the lock filter button is released(off), then the text is cleared on navigation...which is the current behavior. 
3. A configurable shortcut is added to toggle the lock filter button, with the default being Ctrl-Shift-I (since the default shortcut for hiding and showing the filter bar is Ctrl-I.) 
4. If the user toggles the lock filter button to released (off), then the text in the filter also clears. The assumption here is that if the user no longer wants the text to be locked, he probably also wants to clear the text.
 5. When the filter bar is hidden, then the lock filter button is released. The next time the filter bar is shown, the lock filter button will be in the released(off) position and the filter text will have been cleared. 
6. At application startup, the lock filter button is always off, and the filter bar text cleared. 

This also fixes a current bug in dolphin where one is unable to toggle the visibility of the filter bar using the tool bar filter button, or by using the assigned hot key.

Note... I think it is 'patch -p2' from the "dolphin" directory (above src directory ) to apply the patch


Diffs (updated)
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  dolphin/src/dolphinmainwindow.h 7da5801 
  dolphin/src/dolphinmainwindow.cpp 11e03d0 
  dolphin/src/dolphinviewcontainer.h e2d1b18 
  dolphin/src/dolphinviewcontainer.cpp c27550a 
  dolphin/src/filterbar/filterbar.h 9546c63 
  dolphin/src/filterbar/filterbar.cpp f3076f0 

Diff: http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/107392/diff/


Testing
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Went through all paths in dolphin.  Tested: 1. Navigate to different folder. Text should clear only when text not locked
2.Ctl-I shortcut to toggle visiblility of filterbar
3.Text clears when filterbar hidden and then shown
4. Lock button locks and unlocks text
5. Shift-Ctl-I shortcut to toggle lock status of text.  Lock button updates appropriately
6. Status (with non-perisistence from previous instance) of lock button when starting application..i.e. lock status is off on startup
7. Change keyboard shortcuts...works appropriately
8. F3 and split view..tabs..etc.. should still work appropriately
9. Monkey tested...cannot get it to crash
etc....


Screenshots
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Filter bar with new text locking button
  http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/107392/s/877/


Thanks,

Stuart Citrin

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