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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Techical Reason Why Konqueror File Management Engine Can't be
From:       Andreas Pakulat <apaku () gmx ! de>
Date:       2009-06-29 18:57:07
Message-ID: 20090629185707.GB22125 () trinity ! apaku ! dnsalias ! org
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On 29.06.09 13:17:37, David C. Rankin wrote:
> 
> Listmates,
> 
> 	Is there some reason the konqueror file management engine ( "backend" or 
> whatever you want to call it) in kde4 cannot be restored to the kde3 konqueror 
> file manager engine instead of the dolphin backend? There are numerous basic 
> problems with band-aiding the dolphin engine as the backend for konqueror file 
> management that make it very very frustrating to work with. You cannot even 
> make konqueror behave like konqueror since it now shares setting with dolphin.

I doubt there are technical problems, its all software after all so it
can always be changed to fix any existing technical problems.
 
> 	Why was this done in the first place?

Well, my guess would be that there were people who wanted to work on
dolphin and its way of supplying file-management, but nobody wanted to
port/work on the konqueror file-engine stuff.

> Dolphin isn't a usable replacement for konqueror,

Not for all of konqueror, but that was never the goal. Dolphins focus is
on managing files (as in copying them around, browsing through them,
deletion and moving)

> you can't even view a single man page or info page in the silly thing,
> among many other areas where it simply isn't capable of doing what
> konqueror does.

That was actually a design goal with Dolphin.
 
> so why -- until the kde developers get this fixed -- can't 
> you simply restore the konqueror backend to konqueror so it will at least work 

Because that requires someone who is willing to spend the time on
porting it to KDE4/Qt4 API, which is a non-trivial task.

> 	I'm doing my best to understand why all of this stuff is still broken on the 
> eve of the .3 release, and I am doing my best to help fix it (38 bug reports 
> in 30 days), but I must tell you it is very frustrating to have developers 
> take the position that "yes, we know what you could do with konqueror in kde3, 
> we know you can't now, but that isn't a 'bug', that is a 'wishlist' item." 
> Huh??

And I as a KDE developer (not working on konqueror or dolphin) totally
agree with them. The major change under the hood justifies viewing the
file-management component as completely new thing, hence anything the
kde3-one did, but the new doesn't is a new feature of the new
file-management-engine.

> 	We all have to same goal of helping make kde4 "the desktop" for Linux and one 
> by which all others are measured. If we are going to succeed, more attention 
> has to be placed on making sure it is usable and that the basic expected 
> things work. Now fixing the way konqueror works may not be a glamorous as 
> coding the new "plasma", but if the simple things don't work, nobody is going 
> to care how good it looks.

I think you're actually wrong in that point - unfortunately.
 
> 	Now I know this post will piss 1/2 the readers off and garner agreement from 
> the other 1/2, but the bottom line is these type of problems need to be fixed 
> and at least from my standpoint simply restoring the konqueror backend to 
> konqueror would fix a large number.

And they will be, as soon as someone who is annoyed by the missing
feature/bug (or gets paid for it) takes an editor and hacks the source.
Thats the way it works.

Andreas

-- 
Beware of low-flying butterflies.
 
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