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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    RE: The filedialog, please read
From:       Matthias Ettrich <ettrich () troll ! no>
Date:       1999-11-04 16:59:41
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On Thu, 04 Nov 1999, David Faure wrote:
> > On Thu, 04 Nov 1999, David Faure wrote:
> > > [List of KFileDialog bugs]
> > >
> > >This is nonsense. You are talking about the one in HEAD, which
> > >as anything else in HEAD isn't supposed to be bug free. This is
> > >alpha software.
> > 
> > Why is it nonsense? I just counted the bugs which I found in 
> > KFileDialog in HEAD (as this is the one we a discussing about). 
> 
> Yes and no. It's the one people complain about, but then they say
> "this file dialog has NEVER worked for me" (yes I'm quoting).
> Those people forget about the 1.x version, which worked fine.
> You can't judge KFileDialog based on the HEAD version _only_.

Since I am one of the people you are talking about, let me comment on this.
Granted that one can't judge KFileDialog based on the HEAD version _only_, 
but one cannot judget it purely based on the version in 1.1  either, and that is
what's happening here ("the users never complained"? - of course not. Nobody is
using it ).

Fact is that ever since we started KDE-2.x development, the dialog was
completely unusable and remained in that state. 

The topic was broad up *several* times, each time slammed down. Nobody fixed
anything. Now, I won't fix KFileDialog since I clearly vote for a new file
dialog based on QFileDialog.  But those who keep claiming KFileDialog is a
better system should either start bringing it in shape or simply shut up.

This is KDE here, it's all about better code, not politics. KFileDialog was
designed as a user-interface study (thus the tons of options "for development
only" ). After people decided how it should look like, it should have been
reimplemented that way. As it is now it's a grown hack and this shows.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to the idea of a KDE typical file dialog
that gives KDE its own identity, not at all.  But with the current state of
KFileDialog the decision is a  no-brainer. Juding purely from the
development history of the dialog, I can't even think it can be fixed in a
reasonable time-frame. It needs a complete rewrite  (the Qt File Dialog was
rewritten several times during the last month to get the design currently in
the CVS!). We are talking at least two weeks fultime development here (when
using highlevel classes like QListView, QIconView, etc.). If someone has this
time and is willing to invest it, great. It's a lot of work, though, only that
some fanatic Windows-haters stop saying "KDE's file dialog looks like Windows".
I'm confident that these people will find something else to complain,
though ;-)


Matthias

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