[Konsole-devel] Review Request: Disable the feature of "shortening common dirnames" for %d by deafult

Kurt Hindenburg kurt.hindenburg at gmail.com
Sat Feb 25 18:08:03 UTC 2012 


> On Feb. 14, 2012, 3 p.m., Kurt Hindenburg wrote:
> > Since the default is to not use %d, the user would have to select it if they want.  I'm more inclined to live the code as-is.
> > 
> > Perhaps give some documentation about changing the defaults in the rc file would be better than nothing.
> 
> Jekyll Wu wrote:
>     Well, I think that "%D" being default is just another hack/workaround (like this one) to reduce the impact of the reported problem. 
>     
>     According to the git history, "%d" has been the default until the recent commit in the bug report. I think choosing "%d" as default is a good idea, because "%D" can be easily expanded to quite long. So even we now provide "%D" as default, I doubt users will use that default happily. They will probably try "%d", and find the reported problem quickly. So I think that workaround is not that useful.
>     
>     The ideal solution is to provide gui elements for controlling this feature. But I doubt the effort will pay off for this feature, or the priority is high enough. So before we finally provide a real solution, I propose to use another workaround than the current workaround. That is :
>     
>         * use "%d" as default
>         * disable that feature by default by settings the list as empty in the code
>         * add good documentation on how to enable that feature by editing konsolerc manually
>     
>     Yes, the proposed workaround means some (power) users who enjoy this feature might find this feature is gone in surprise. But I do believe they are the minority and are capable of finding how to get it back through reading documentation.
>     
>
> 
> Kurt Hindenburg wrote:
>     I'm not 100% that your propose is a good idea.  If we implement it, on updating konsole, can we check the users profiles and if they are using %d manually add current list to the CommonDirNames?  If not, all the users using %d will be confused on what happened.
>     
>     On a side note, I'm not against adding GUI for configurations options.  Currently, the config dialogs are not very well organized.  It would be better now that we're splitting the konsole and profile settings.  Both the 'manager profile' and 'configure profile' dialogs need a revamp.
> 
> Jekyll Wu wrote:
>     "can we check the users profiles and if they are using %d manually add current list to the CommonDirNames?"
>     
>     That should be possible. Writing another migration script based upon the kconf-update framework should not be a hard work.
>     
>
> 
> Kurt Hindenburg wrote:
>     Well, I still think this isn't a good idea.
>     
>     If you remove all the entries, the %d won't actually do anything - even though it says %d = short in the tab dialog.
>     
>     I would purpose leaving %D the default and moving the string entries into konsolerc (if that's the best place) and put some docs on how to change them.
>     
>     Is there any other terminal which shortens like %d does?
> 
> Jekyll Wu wrote:
>     No, that won't make %d stop working.
>     
>     when that list is empty, "/path/to/konsole/src" will generate "src" when "%d" is used 
>     
>     when that list is non-empty and contains "src"(the current situation), "/path/to/konsole/src" will generate "konsole/s" when "%d" is used. Or,"/var/tmp/src/" will generates "var/t/s".
>     
>     So no matter whether that list contains(even emtpy), "%d" always generates shorten name, which matches the description. That list only influce how the shorten name is formed.
>     
>
> 
> Kurt Hindenburg wrote:
>     Oh yea, it helps to read the code - I never liked nor used this myself.
>     
>     So make %D the  default and put the strings in a *rc?  That's seems fine w/ me.
> 
> Kurt Hindenburg wrote:
>     On 2nd thought, what about adding a new variable %e (or whatever) that will mimic what %d does now? (the shorten name and src => s).
>     
>     1. change default to %d
>     2. Move strings to *rc
>     3. Add code for new %e
>     
>     This way %d and %e are separate.  Thoughts?
> 
> Jekyll Wu wrote:
>     No, I have always preferred and suggested using "%d" as the default. And "%d" has always been the default until recently.
>     
>     Adding another "%e" seems overkill. That would increase the confusion of choice, IMO. And the current way of shorting (konsole/src -> konsole/s)is unnatural by nature. Without reading source code, I have no clear idea how it works.
>     
>     Actually, if we really decide to add another %e(or whatever), I prefer to make it a variant of "%D", like this:
>     
>     %D    /var/lib/portage/distfiles  ==> /var/lib/portage/distfiles
>     %d    /var/lib/portage/distfiles  ==> distfiles
>     %e    /var/lib/portage/distfiles  ==> /v/t/p/distfiles
>     
>     
>     But I still think adding another "%e" is too much. The semantic of "%D" and "%d" in above examples are simple and natural, which are quite unlikely to cause confusion. The existing variant of shorten name, on the other hand, is far more complex and confusing. 
>     
>     So my opinion:
>     
>     1). no matter whether we provide GUI for controlling that list of common dirnames, "%d" should bahave in the simplest way by default. So, that list should be empty by default.
>     
>     2). after reconsidering the influence of writing a script for automatically migrating that list into *rc, I now perfer not to write it at all. That migration will defeat the purpose of this change for many exising users who are confused and don't know how to get rid of this strange & advanced behavior.
>     
>     
>     
>     
>     
>     
>

Go ahead.  I don't mind the %d part, but the var -> v isn't something I ever liked or thought should be the default.  I guess I didn't explain my issues very well.


- Kurt


-----------------------------------------------------------
This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/103949/#review10631
-----------------------------------------------------------


On Feb. 12, 2012, 8:59 a.m., Jekyll Wu wrote:
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> This is an automatically generated e-mail. To reply, visit:
> http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/103949/
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> 
> (Updated Feb. 12, 2012, 8:59 a.m.)
> 
> 
> Review request for Konsole.
> 
> 
> Description
> -------
> 
> The attached patch is only a hack, not a real solution.
> 
> I would like to discuss something:
> 
> 1). In principle, shall we provide GUI for each effective option? Is it OK to have some hidden options which are only configurable through manual editing, when such options are rarely used or hard to understand for ordinary users? Of course, we must provide clear document for those hidden options in that case.
> 
> 2). For this specific option, it currently always reads konsolerc, which is not quite good for konsolepart.
> 
> 
> This addresses bug 190281.
>     http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=190281
> 
> 
> Diffs
> -----
> 
>   src/ProcessInfo.cpp 92e3eca 
> 
> Diff: http://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/103949/diff/
> 
> 
> Testing
> -------
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jekyll Wu
> 
>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/konsole-devel/attachments/20120225/50a46a40/attachment.html>

More information about the konsole-devel mailing list