Dolphin left panel improvements request

[Mathias Dufresne]

2017-08-27 22:56 GMT+02:00 Mark Gaiser <markg85 at gmail.com>:

>
>
> On Sun, Aug 27, 2017 at 10:50 PM, Mark Gaiser <markg85 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 2, 2017 at 5:12 PM, Mathias Dufresne <
>> mathias.dufresne at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Until few months I was Konqueror with its "filemanagement" profile to
>>> deal with my files and folders using my mouse. Since Konqueror is not able
>>> to do that as it is concentrating itself on Web content which seems logical.
>>>
>>> I first sent a mail to David Faure as the patch which seemed to me
>>> (according to description, not the code which I don't understand,
>>> unfortunately) responsible to the removal of these features and after a
>>> small but quite interesting discussion I'm here to discuss about the
>>> features I'd like to see added to Dolphin and why I think they are
>>> interesting.
>>>
>>> Before starting I must say I'm not very good in languages and can sound
>>> a bit rough when speaking English. My point is not shout ;)
>>>
>>> First which panel am I speaking about ?
>>> The one showing only directories, accessible with F7 (thank's again
>>> David for the tip ;)
>>>
>>
>> Thank you both, i didn't know that either :)
>>
>>>
>>> What I was in love with into Konqueror and I'd like to see added into
>>> Dolphin's directories only left panel:
>>> - into Konqueror folders were not movable in left panel. David said it
>>> was a bug and even if complained alone when faced to that first I finally
>>> became very found of it.
>>> Why? The left panel is not where we work, we work mainly with files and
>>> files are into right panel. The left panel is then used only to select
>>> where we want to work. It's preparation of work, more work but still not
>>> the real work. This preparation can be performed with not much attention.
>>>
>>> A real world example of that is flat painting: you can be really careful
>>> applying paint on walls but you can hate to prepare the flat (some sheet on
>>> the floor, adhesive band around the surface to paint...) to avoid paint to
>>> be splattered everywhere. Some won't prepare the flat nor clean it after it
>>> ruined. The walls will be very well painted but the floor will be also :)
>>>
>>
>> So you basically want to have the panel in a "read only" mode. No changes
>> can be made via the panel, only via the actual views.
>> That sounds logical, but i think there are also use cases for having some
>> interaction within the panel, just for ease of use sake.
>>
>
That's just the usage of mouse to move one folder into another one that I'd
like to see disabled.
For example, the fact we can delete folder using context menu in left panel
suits me.

The general idea is "click + move" is too easy to perform in place of just
"click". Having all others actions available seems to me important too,
they are more complex to perform and so there's less risk to perform them
by mistake.



>
>>
>>>
>>> - add in left panel context menu (when right clicking on some folder)
>>> same "open with" menu which is available in right panel.
>>> This seems to be an easy task but, again, I have no idea of the
>>> complexity of it, I don't "code".
>>>
>>
>> I'm not quite sure if i follow you here.
>> Do you perhaps mean that right clicking on a folder in the right panel
>> should look the same on the left?
>>
>
I'm not sure to follow you too :)
I don't mean stuffs should be removed from right-click context menu in
right panel.
I mean right-clicking on folder should give same menu on right and on left
panel. So adding missing stuffs in right panel folder-context-menu.


>
>>
>>> - the possibility to display only the folders into user home directory
>>> rather than necessarily display the whole system tree.
>>> My dear mother which is now 68 is a Linux user for years but she's not a
>>> system admin (I can assure you that ;) and files and folders management is
>>> still a real pain to her. And unfortunately I don't expect things will be
>>> better in the future...
>>> For her seeing the whole system tree will be something which will afraid
>>> her a lot. For me it is just a pain to find my home folder in the whole but
>>> I know it's there and I know where. She's always afraid of computers, she's
>>> never sure things are there nor where they are...
>>>
>>
>> Time to learn another shortcut: ALT+Home :) It jumps you back to the home
>> folder.
>> Also, if you have the places panel (F9) it also has a "Home" place.
>> Furthermore, the toolbar (with back, forward, etc...) can be adjusted
>> (right click on it: "Configure toolbars..." and there you see a "Home"
>> somewhere. The button is there, but not visible by default. Just add it to
>> the visible buttons and you have another way to jump to the home folder. Do
>> you want more ways? I know one more, but that's not user friendly. Open the
>> console within dolphin (F4) and type "cd ~".
>>
>
I do love learning shortcuts but to be honest, my old-mom doesn't : )
In your second reply you sent a link to hoffmannrobert's patch which seems
to be exactly what I meant.
To be honest I set up her Konqueror (and recently Dolphin after her system
disk died) and she doesn't not touch anything to not being lost... and if
it change, generally she call me for help...

But that kind of user who do not love learning shortcuts are numerous, my
banker is of that kind, she's not yet 30 years old... this removal of
non-user folder seems to me a way to make their life simpler: they don't
see the complexity of a Linux system, they just have to deal with their own
files (which is often sufficient to make their life complicated, no offence
meant).


>
>>
>>> - in konqueror there were some small buttons to choose which left panel
>>> we want to use (full system tree, home folder only tree...) and they were a
>>> nice and quick way to switch among the views.
>>> Perhaps an option to show these buttons or not would be nice. They were
>>> nice shortcut for user knowing what they do but I remind my mother calling
>>> one evening because she clicked on one of those without noticing or at
>>> least not understanding what just happened... she lost the view, the only
>>> one she was used to enough to deal with and had now idea why it changed nor
>>> how to revert that change.
>>>
>>
>> I would like to have that feature as well! So to "chroot" the folders
>> view or to not chroot. But i'm not quite sure if adding buttons within a
>> panel would be pretty.. Perhaps the dolphin settings dialog should get a
>> new tab for "Panel settings" where we could drop settings for those panels.
>>
>
> Just a little note.
> This is apparently being implemented as we speak:
> https://phabricator.kde.org/D7477
> (in the settings, but not in it's own tab though)
>

As said previously, the description of what does that patch seems exactly
what I'd like to see implemented.
Rather than adding button this "chroot" behaviour could perhaps being
implemented on every F9 panel item (if requested by some option).

But the main point in my opinion is to have that on home folder. When
building system for user I prefer mount stuffs directly in their homedir,
as I do for me, to keep one place to search: the homedir.
As before, the idea here is when not playing with system things, don't show
the system.


>
>>> - a last thing which is not about the folders panel but the "places"
>>> panel:
>>> That's a panel I don't use but after discussing with David I finally
>>> understood its purpose: an easy access to (at least) USB pens.
>>> My Mom does not mount anything at all, I do (using xterm, thanks to
>>> OpenVPN :) which is not the most efficient way. Here the "places" panel
>>> would be great to help here but once again, it is to complex for I ask her
>>> to learn it: at least this panel should have an option to not show mounted
>>> devices.
>>> I ask for an option here because I'm very sure Dolphin have already a
>>> lot of users used to see mounted devices, users which most certainly use
>>> this buttons as shortcut to access devices rather searching into the tree.
>>>
>>> I think this is just a matter of getting used to it.
>>
>
Sure, I'm using Dolphin for few months now and F9 panel could be useful on
some computer I did not designed: it helps to find mounted device at least.


> What you want sounds like a feature that could be useful in office
>> environments as well. Where you don't want the employee to stick it's nose
>> in drives that might be there, but should not be accessed... Something like
>> that.
>>
>
And yes, that's the (or another) point, users should not be necessary
helped to put their noses everywhere :)


> If we can get a settings tab for panels then adding this one in should be
>> simple, but by default i would like to show these kind of things.
>>
>
Sure. Most users want a simple computer and it helps to simplify.
But some option to filter things for example, by system side (/usr/share or
something like that) could be useful in work places.

Thank you for your time and thanks to all devs for the great work I use for
more than a decade with pleasure (and some shouts sometimes ^^)

Greetings,

mathias


>
>>
>>> I'll try to follow that but summer's here for all of us. So I will wish
>>> you all a great time during that summer, sunny time or fresh time, or both,
>>> as you like :)
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> mathias
>>>
>>
>>
>
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