[Design] lighten Dolphin’s Control menu

[sinma]

Hello again, thanks for replying.


Le dimanche 1 septembre 2013 14:11:11 Todd a écrit :
> Some of these I will skip because I don't feel strongly or don't have
> anything specific to add, but I do have comments on others

I’ll do the same thing here.

> On Sat, Aug 31, 2013 at 7:31 PM, sinma <eichi237 at mailoo.org> wrote:
> > * «View Mode» must be placed on the toolbar (more intuitive, like any
> > other
> > file manager, the redundance is useless)
> 
> The view mode is already in the toolbar by default, in the form of
> individual icons.  If you add the "view mode" menu to the toolbar, it
> disappears from the menu.  It should probably also disappear from the menu
> if all the icons are in the toolbar, too.  Feel free to file a bug about
> this if there isn't one already.

I don’t know if it’s tricky to implement this. I see two possibilities:
* add the three buttons in one time, like if it was only one button. Users 
cannot have only two buttons.
* we need to watch if the three buttons are in the toolbar each time we edit 
the toolbar layout, and each time Dolphin start.

In any case, a bit of work seems necessary, and I don’t know if it’s really 
worth it. I’ll report this on bugs.kde.org.

> > * «Reload» is not useful for most people, because Dolphin take care of
> > reloading the view (or at least to display almost immediately the change
> > in the working directory).
> 
> Only on local folders.  On remote folders it often doesn't do as good of a
> job.

Can be it on a submenu? Furthermore, F5 is a well know shortcut, and reload 
isn’t used each 2 minutes.

> >* The «Go» submenu is useless, it’s just a garbage from the old Dolphin UI
> > because it’s duplicating features that are already accessible in one clic
> > in the toolbar.
> 
> "Home" and "Recently closed tabs" are not in the toolbar by default on my
> system.

"Home" is almost always the personal folder, and the few geeks that use it now 
probably know what is Alt+Home. But you’re right about «Recently closed tabs», 
I forget it.

> > ** «Show Filter Bar» must be placed in the toolbar, at the left of the
> > «Find» icon (and maybe renamed because it’s its name is a bit confusing 
> > for the noob I think). By the way, when clicking the second time on «Show 
> > Filter Bar» or «Find», it must close the previously opened bar.
> 
> I would argue it would be better to merge filter and find, but in the
> present situation people who need to use filter a lot can enable it by
> default.  But there is a question whether enough people use it to justify
> this.

Filter bar is definitely more useful to me, but I barely use it because it’s 
not on the toolbar so I forget about it.

Merging the filter bar and "Find" seems to be a good idea:
* we can keep the two shortcuts but the filter bar shortcut enable the search 
without recursivity
* we can use the search like the filter bar but with Nepomuk search options

> > * The «Show Menubar» is not used frequently, so it may be better to move
> > it to the configuration dialog or get rid of it.
> 
> The whole point is to make it easy to get the menu back if someone
> accidentally removes it.

Is the menubar really used anymore? The "new" UI of Dolphin is pretty good 
(and will be better if we can simplify it a bit).

Maybe it’s not worth it to keep the possibility to go back to the menubar. I 
think some users still use it by habit or because it’s the default settings on 
some distros, but in the more or less near future almost nobody will use it.

> > * is it really the place for «New Window» and «New Tab» entries?
> 
> Generally people will be using the right-click or middle-click for that,
> but maintaining that functionality, especially when those buttons are not
> available, is still important.

I think this two strings must be replaced by "Open In New Window" and "Open in 
New Tab": I didn’t understand that it opens the working directory in another 
window or tab but, as the name suggests, that it opens a new Dolphin view on 
the default folder (like when we launch a new Dolphin instance).

> So it gives me the following:
> > Select All
> > Invert Selection
> > ---
> > Sort by           >
> > Show in Groups
> > Show Hidden Files
> > Panels            >
> > ---
> > Settings          >
> > 
> >                        Configure Shortcuts…
> >                        Configure Toolbars…
> >                        Configure Dolphin…
> > 
> > Help              >
> > 
> > 
> > Cleaner, isn’t it? Don’t forget that most of the functions aren’t deleted,
> > because either there’s a better way to acces it (easier to find and/or
> > quicker
> > to use), or it’s deported in the toolbar.
> 
> You are ending up with a very large set of toolbar buttons, which can be a
> problem on small screens.   Basically your argument boils down to "we
> should put things I use in the toolbar and get rid of things I don't use".
> But if you are going to include substantial changes like this you need to
> justify them beyond just your own work-flow.  You need to provide some
> evidence that these are or are not useful enough to the average user to
> justify what you are proposing.

I’m not a designer, I havn’t numbers to put on usage but I’ve many ideas, and 
I think it’s worth it to discuss it (because you know Dolphin users more than 
me and you can tell me if what I purpose is good or not).


I’ve added a "View" submenu, don’t know if it’s better than before but it 
seems fair. Before: 18 entries. Now: 8.


Select All
Invert Selection
---
View             >
                      Sort by                >
                      Additional Information >
                      Show in Groups
                      Show Hidden Files
                      Reload
Panels           >
---
Tools            >    // I don’t know if it’s a good place…
                      Recently Closed Tabs >
                      Compare Files
                      Select Remote Charset
Settings         >
                      Configure Shortcuts…
                      Configure Toolbars…
                      Configure Dolphin…
Help             >
(Show Menubar)


The toolbar (don’t know if there’s a good place for "Undo"):


Previous   Next | Icons   Compact   Details   Preview   Split View | Find   
Undo | Control


Last but not least, why are there "Undo" but not "Redo"? That sounds a bit 
strange.


Thanks for reading,

sinma