First impressions of dolphin

[Peter Lewis]

Hi,

On Wednesday 03 October 2007 14:57, Juan Carlos Torres wrote:
> On Wednesday 03 October 2007 6:58:25 pm Peter Lewis wrote:
> > 2. There's no refresh button. How do I know if it's showing the latest
> > contents if I update the folder from somewhere else (i.e. konsole)? Or is
> > this just a trust issue? It would be nice to *know*.
>
> You can manually put it by configuring the toolbar (right-click on the
> toolbar). It's not there by default because Dolphin is supposed to have
> fixed Konqueror's bug of not automatically updating on changes.

"Supposed to"? Cool, well at least I can add it again :-)

> > 3. I have to click somewhere before I can type in the address where I
> > want to go to, and where to click is not obvious (or indeed that that
> > functionality even exists).
>
> There is only actually only one place to click in order to be able to type
> in the exact location, that is on the icon at the leftmost part of the
> breadcrumb bar, the Edit Location icon (keyboard shortcut Ctrl+L).
>
> > 4. The breadcrumbs things seems broken by design IMO. When I'm in MY home
> > directory, /home/pete, it says "home", then, if I go to /home/pete/work,
> > it says "home->work". Conversely, if I navigate to another user's home
> > folder (say a KDE4 dev user), it says I'm in "root->home->kdedev". This
> > is confusing.
>
> The Home location there is not the /home folder. Notice the difference in
> case. If you click on the Home button, it will drop down a list of other
> locations, which, if you'll notice is the same as the Bookmarks. Yes, those
> are bookmarks, not absolute paths to folders. That Home is your equivalent
> to ~.
>
> Now, if you go to kdedev's home folder, that is not your home folder
> anymore, not ~. So naturally, it will not say Home. It will give you the
> breadcrumb from the / though, which is Root.

Thanks for the clarification. I still think that this is confusing though. If 
the aim of dolphin is to make things easier and more obvious, then these two 
points seem to do the opposite.

I do like konqueror, and KDE in general, because all the functionality is 
generally laid out in front of me in the various menus or toolbars, not 
hidden away. That's my one reason for really not liking GNOME. Especially 
GNOME's save/load file dialog, which requires many more clicks than KDE's, 
just to expose the functionality I want. But generally, being able to see 
what I can do is good, and one of KDE's strengths. With GNOME-style stuff 
*and* what dolphin appears to be like, I end up feeling like I'm having a 
battle with the app to try to figure out where the functionality is. This 
isn't helpful, or more "usable".

> > and dolphin seems to be the most
> > confusing KDE app I've seen. But yes, it is quite fast (not that
> > konqueror is slow though).
>
> How amusing. You're actually the first person I heard say that. Most people
> say that Konqueror is the confusing one. But yes, it needs a bit of getting
> used to the new breadcrumb (since it's something very new to KDE in
> general, but not to GNOME :P).

But yeah, I don't personally feel that having lots of options laid out in 
front of me (konqueror style) is more confusing. On the contrary, it's 
liberating to see what I can do. Dolphin may be "less confusing" in the sense 
that it limits your options, but IMO that's why GNOME is bad. Hey, I can 
always run nautilus in KDE if I want... ;-)

> If it's any comfort to you, the version of Dolphin on Kubuntu (actually
> it's D3lphin) is far behind in development compared to the one currently in
> KDE 4. So don't throw in the towel just yet. :)

Oh, I won't, and I'd always prefer to contribute than to run. I'm a big fan of 
KDE :-)

I think as well, and this may not particularly be something people are 
interested in discussing, but that this move signifies a change in what KDE 
is for. Is it for its users, or for potential ones? Is it more important to 
have lots of new users migrating from windows (or even using it on windows), 
or to be really good at what its current users want?

I'd personally go for the latter option...

Pete.