GSoC 2016 Project Idea Usability Suggestions

Sat Dec 26 18:24:27 UTC 2015

Thank you for the highly analytical email! I will try to answer each 
question in parts : )

/How does this idea improve on hold Ctrl, then click files? I.e. can/does 
it apply to multiple disjoint folder trees at the same time?/

In my opinion and personal experience, ctrl+click has always been a 
pretty unintuitive and unfriendly way of selecting non-contiguous 
subsets of files. It's stressful to keep one finger always on the ctrl 
key and the functionality is very limited as it only works for the 
current level of the directory. This idea does exactly that, it works on 
disjoint folder trees at the same time. Plus, there is no stress about 
accidentally lifting the finger from the ctrl key and losing the entire 
selection : )

/Does this mode have special provisions for navigating in the one panel 
so you can easily select file (sub)sets from disjoint directory trees 
without setting up the file view as an expanded tree view first?/

I am not entirely sure if I have understood the question, but operations 
can be performed on the File Tray view as well across multiple disjoint 
directory trees. I'm not quite clear on the part of "setting up the file 
view as an expanded tree view first" however.

/Would it be a good idea and feasible to integrate generic context menu 
actions/capabilities so you could use it not just for copy/paste but 
also for creating archives, redoing file permissions, vcs actions, etc.?/

//Absolutely! I hadn't thought about this too far beyond copy/paste, but 
it makes a lot of sense. This panel will inherit a lot of functionality 
from Dolphin so it would be a great idea to incorporate commonly used 
features that temporarily involve files from a lot of different 
directories (such as archiving) together. Furthermore, all file 
operations will use Dolphin's already well developed functions for 
moving files. This includes the view for file operations which Dolphin uses.

The ASCII mockup is pretty spot on for what I intended. The idea of only 
using collapsible file trees in the top level is a great idea! I was 
thinking that maybe there could be an "Remove" file/folder option in the 
toolbar for the panel with a corresponding right click context menu 
option but overlays on the files/folders icons would be much easier to use.

Again, thank you very much for the comprehensive feedback and very 
useful suggestions!
//
On Saturday 26 December 2015 01:29 PM, Johan Ouwerkerk wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 24, 2015 at 1:49 PM, Arnav Dhamija <arnav.dhamija at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi everyone
>>
>> I am a first year computer science undergraduate at the university and I
>> have a project idea I want to implement in the Dolphin file manager.
>> Response from the Dolphin team has been positive and they have suggested
>> bringing the issue towards the usability side to create an easy to use GUI
>> to make this happen. My idea is as follows:
>>
>> Trays Panel Extension for the Dolphin File Manager for improving GUI file
>> selection operations
>>
>> Selecting multiple files in any file manager for copying and pasting has
>> never been a pleasant experience, especially if the files are in a
>> non-continuous order. Often, when copying files between devices we might
>> find that we need to select only a subset of the required files we have
>> selected and this leads to the unwieldy operation of removing files from our
>> selection. Of course, the common workaround is to create a new folder and to
>> put all the items in  but this is a very inefficient process and can be very
>> slow if large files need to be copied between devices.
>>
>> My solution to this problem is to add a panel/view in Dolphin where the
>> links to files and folders can be temporarily saved for a session. The files
>> and folders are "staged" on this panel. Hence, the user can add folders and
>> files from several different directories to this panel and can then
>> collectively perform actions on all the items in the tray such as copy,
>> paste, cut, upload images in selection to Facebook, upload files to Dropbox,
>> etc. This makes complex file operations easy by staging the operation before
>> performing it.
>>
>> Files can be added to this tray by using a right-click context menu option
>> or by using the mouse scroll click or drag and drop. As an additional
>> option, the session for the File Tray Panel can be saved for later use.
>>
>> My initial idea was to have another split view mode with its button in the
>> toolbar in Dolphin. It will function similarly to the existing split view
>> but with one half of the screen dedicated to the "Files tray". This would
>> make it neatly integrated with Dolphin's existing toolset and it would make
>> dragging and dropping easy. Dolphin maintainer Emmanuel Pescosta suggested
>> using Plasmoids to make the project more cohesive with KDE and to make it
>> usable with multiple applications (eg Gwenview).
>>
>> I would be much obliged to hear feedback from the usability and visual
>> design team on this and suggestions for a cleaner UI. Thanks!
>>
>> --
>> arnav dhamija
>>
> Not a usability team member but kind of intrigued by your proposal nonetheless:
>
> How does this idea improve on hold Ctrl, then click files? I.e.
> can/does it apply to multiple disjoint folder trees at the same time?
>
> Does this mode have special provisions for navigating in the one panel
> so you can easily select file (sub)sets from disjoint directory trees
> without setting up the file view as an expanded tree view first?
> Would it be a good idea and feasible to integrate generic context menu
> actions/capabilities so you could use it not just for copy/paste but
> also for creating archives, redoing file permissions, vcs actions,
> etc.?
> Should it be possible to trigger this via Ctrl + click'ing files, as
> well as the other shortcuts mentioned?
>
> As for UI would it be a good idea to have a toolbar in the panel
> corresponding with common context menu actions one might use the new
> panel for?
> Basically I'm thinking something like this ASCII art mockup
> (navigation & file view panel on the left, staging area on the right):
> ____________________________________________________________
> </path/foo>      |[ Copy ] [Move To] [Archive] [ Attributes][View
> mode] [...] <- ... is like burger menu button, for less common actions
> that most non technical people wouldn't bother with
> ...              | >- <selected/folder/1>
> ...              |  ... - <selected file1>
> ...              | v+  selected/but/not/expanded/folder/2
> ...              | >+ also-staged/not/selected/folder/3
> ...              | .... + foo
> ...              | v-   not/selected/and/not/expanded/folder/4
> ...              | >+ more/stuff/in/folder/5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Where +/- are normal selection overlay icons.
> The staging panel probably should have various view modes the same way
> as the normal file view has except that at the top level it should
> always be like the tree mode.
> By this I meant that you can put it in big icons, small icons, list,
> tree with alphabetic headings view mode for the child items of the
> selected folders, but that at the top level it's always an expandable
> list of selected folders in which the selections were made before
> staging them. (Hence the >
>
> Additionally, ideally I think it should be possible to use normal file
> selection mode in the staging panel so you can un-stage multiple files
> selected by accident also; hence the need for +/- overlay icons as
> well.
>
> ... Personally I think your panel idea could make for a really
> interesting and powerful file management feature!

-- 
arnav dhamija
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