Confirmation for deletion of files in Dolphin settings also affects Gwenview

[Burkhard Lück]

Am Freitag, 14. Juni 2013, 17:12:28 schrieb Aurélien Gâteau:
> On Thursday 13 June 2013 16:56:20 Frank Reininghaus wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > 
> > Burkhard recently made me aware of the following forum discussion:
> > 
> > http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=213&t=110440
> > 
> > Some users have noticed that Gwenview does not ask for confirmation
> > when deleting a file if that confirmation is disabled in Dolphin. When
> > having a closer look at the issue, this is not really surprising
> > because Dolphin writes that setting to the global config kiorc, and
> > both applications use KIO to delete files, which respects that
> > setting.
> > 
> > However, this is not really a user-friendly solution and might even
> > lead to data loss if a user who does not find any way to
> > enable/disable confirmations in Gwenview assumes that it will always
> > ask before really deleting the file.
> 
> I agree.
> 
> > I think that we might want to
> > 
> > (a) Add a warning in Dolphin's settings dialog that the "Trash" and
> > "Delete" confirmations, unlike the "Close window with multiple tabs"
> > one, affects *all* KDE applications. One possibility would be to add
> > the text "Please note that this setting affects all KDE applications"
> > to the text next to the two checkboxes. Input from Burkhard would be
> > appreciated here because he works a lot with texts in the GUI and the
> > docs and might have better ideas how this could be solved.
> 
> This could work, but does not sound like a behavior the user would expect.
> 
> > (b) Restore the possibility to configure the confirmations in
> > Gwenview's settings dialog.
> 
> My memory may be tricking me, but I don't it has ever been possible to
> configure confirmation of file operations in Gwenview. 

It was possible in gwenview in kde 3, see screenshot from gwenview 1.42 
running in a VM with 3.11 trinity here http://postimg.org/image/4qpwyu0sr/

> I would personally
> prefer a way to split the settings so that they are not shared anymore. I
> believe this is what users expect.
> 
I disagree here, let me explain why:

The two confirmation options mentioned by Frank effect file operations in 
Gwenview, Konqueror, Dolphin, Kmail(!) and in many kde applications via the 
File dialog.

Imagine you have a separate option in gwenview, but this option is different in 
the file dialog (using the global confirmation setting) launched from Gwenview 
via Load/Save from the File menu. Would our users really expect that? 
I seriously doubt it.

Furthermore these are basic file management options used widely in kde apps as 
mentioned above, so I think our users expect them to be global settings. 

And if a user in kde4 somehow learned / recognized by experience that these  
confirmation options are global this might lead to data loss just the other way 
round. 

Franks solution with a warning in Dolphin's/Konqueror's settings dialog seems 
to be only a short term solution.

A global option should be changeable only in our general control utility in 
systemsettings or in a kcm dialog outside the application window. That would 
make automatically clear, that the user is changing a global option, no 
warning needed.

Digging around for similar problems (changing options in an application 
settings dialog, which are global, but this might probably be not always that 
obvious for users) I found a way rekonq handles such an issue regarding proxy 
settings, which could be adapted and used here like:

Show the current status of these global confirmation options in 
Dolphins/Konquerors settings dialog, but don't allow to edit them directly. 
Instead provide a button labeled "Change Option" or similar which opens a 
separate kcm dialog which is also available in the systemsettings.

Another global option belonging to the two confirmation options is the Delete 
entry in the context menu of Konqueror/Dolphin/Filedialog. This entry can only 
be altered by checking/unchecking "Show 'Delete' menu entry which bypass the 
trashcan" in Konqueror Settings -> File Management page.

Having these options in a kcm module would prevent the race conditions 
mentioned in another mail. Open Systemsettings->Phonon and try to open that 
module module  as well via KMix-> Audio Setup you get a warning that Phonon 
kcm is already opened - no race condition possible.

I found similar (but minor?) issues with changing options in an application 
settings dialog, which effect not only the application and this behavior might 
sometimes not be recognized by the user:

File management options used in Dolphin and via the Dolphin component in 
Konqueror 
Adblock - can be changed in Konqueror/rekonq + effects both
Web Shortcuts - can be changed in Konqueror + rekonq and effects 
Konqueror/rekonq/KRunner

Thanks.

-- 
Burkhard Lück