Review Request 121478: dolphin: add menu to SpaceInfo widget for detailled disk usage information

[Michael Lutynski]

> On Dec. 13, 2014, 8:50 p.m., Emmanuel Pescosta wrote:
> > Thanks for the patch!
> > 
> > I think we shouldn't add a context menu for opening other disk usage tools in Dolphin. 
> > 
> > We have awesome application launchers which do their job really well, just type "disk usage" in e.g. Homerun Kicker or KRunner and you will get KDiskFree and Filelight, so no need to implement it in Dolphin itself.
> > There are some other problems with this patch as well, like remote locations in disk usage tools (we have free disk space information for smb locations since KIO 5), maintenance, ...
> > 
> > Sorry, I hope you will understand it
> 
> Gregor Mi wrote:
>     Hi, thanks for the feedback. I agree with you that the application launchers are great; I use them myself a lot. I tried the "disk usage" keywords and the two applications appear. I also understand that adding a feature results in more maintenance. On the other hand, with my patch (though technically currently not optimal) the goal is to reduce the amount of keywords a new user would have to come up with and type down to achieve this particular goal. Currently, I see dolphin - the primary file manager - as good candidate for a starting point to give users a hint which applications can help to investigate disk space issues, without having to resort to google. Do you have another idea? I am not sure if you meant to reject the feature per se or just the patch in it's current state. I di
 dn't know about the free disk space info for smb locations, cool thing. E.g. one could disable the menu items that will not work with remote locations?
> 
> Gregor Mi wrote:
>     What about having a "Disk usage" menu item with the initially mentioned subitems in the Tools menu instead?
> 
> Eike Hein wrote:
>     Personally, I think having an access point for the disk usage tools in the free space notifier is actually kind of clever integration and isn't too much of a UI complexity burden. The big advantage over using Kicker or KRunner is that you can open them primed on the current folder.
>     
>     I agree about the maintenance burden though, and this patch needs a few rounds of iteration.

This is indeed a clever addition to Dolphin! The idea minimizes the cognitive leap between a number and how we can directly explore that number. Its unobtrusive implementaiton doesn't add more visual pollution either. 

As a side note, I spend *a lot* of time installing KDE on non-techie people's computers and have learned how they see things. This addition would be a boon for them because if they were to ask me about their free space on the hard disk, I can simply tell them, "click on this space notifier here and you will be given options for examining where your space is being utilized". 

Expecting a non-tech person to know how to phrase their problem as a "disk usage" query for Kicker just wouldn't work in the minds of the people I tutor (they rarely type things into Kicker, even if I show them); if I told them to type "disk usage" into Kicker, they'd forget it within 5 minutes. I'd wager anything that telling them about clicking on the free space notifier is easier to remember.

I think this addition ties in very well with the KDE philosophy of "simple by default, powerful when needed".

My only addition to the existing design is that the menu entry names are meaningless to a casual user (what does "KDiskFree" mean? or "Filelight"?). I've found that if the user doesn't know what a term means, they will feel afraid to try it out ("I don't want to erase my hard drive" is a common fear). 

So allow me to suggest the menu items be more descriptive:

(1) Show disk-usage in a simple list (KDiskFree)
(4) Examine disk-usage in a pie graph for current folder (Filelight)
(3) Examine disk-usage in a pie graph for entire disk (Filelight)
(2) Examine disk-usage in pie graphs for all disks (Filelight) <--- would this be necessary?


- Michael


-----------------------------------------------------------
This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/121478/#review71934
-----------------------------------------------------------


On Dec. 13, 2014, 6:46 p.m., Gregor Mi wrote:
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
> https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/121478/
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> (Updated Dec. 13, 2014, 6:46 p.m.)
> 
> 
> Review request for Dolphin.
> 
> 
> Repository: kde-baseapps
> 
> 
> Description
> -------
> 
> Adds a menu when left-clicked on the SpaceInfo widget in the status bar with the following entries:
> 
> (1) KDiskFree
> (2) Filelight
> (3) Filelight device
> (4) Filelight location
> 
> see screenshot: http://wstaw.org/m/2014/12/13/plasma-desktopqO2157.png
> 
> Details on the menu entries:
> 
> (1) starts KDiskFree (useful tool, hard to find when unknown by new user)
> (2) starts Filelight without parameters
> (3) starts Filelight with current mount point
> (4) starts Filelight with current location
> 
> If KDiskFree or Filelight is not installed the corresponding menu action is disabled with a hint "[Not installed]".
> 
> 
> Diffs
> -----
> 
>   dolphin/src/statusbar/spaceinfotoolsmenu.cpp PRE-CREATION 
>   dolphin/src/statusbar/statusbarspaceinfo.h 5d571beba9b936c52dd3279e370c39a1bfd50827 
>   dolphin/src/statusbar/statusbarspaceinfo.cpp 046cbbb23072648aece5677defb1b9074baa9482 
>   dolphin/src/statusbar/spaceinfotoolsmenu.h PRE-CREATION 
>   dolphin/src/statusbar/spaceinfoexternaltools.h PRE-CREATION 
>   dolphin/src/CMakeLists.txt 8e13e97fe10674f16fd65ad808f151b09e6978a2 
> 
> Diff: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/121478/diff/
> 
> 
> Testing
> -------
> 
> Clicked all the menu entries and they work as described.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Gregor Mi
> 
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mail.kde.org/mailman/private/kfm-devel/attachments/20141215/a9077fd1/attachment.htm>