'Developing a new KIO Slave (GSoC 2016 Project)'

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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Developing a new KIO Slave (GSoC 2016 Project)
From:       Arnav Dhamija <arnav.dhamija () gmail ! com>
Date:       2016-01-20 16:14:55
Message-ID: 569FAFAF.6070607 () gmail ! com
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Hi!

I am a first year undergraduate student at the university interested in 
contributing to KDE for the 2016 edition for the GSoC.

I wish to contribute with an original idea. A short summary of my idea 
is as follows:

  File Trays for making file selection easier in Dolphin

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 selecting files using Ctrl+A or the 
selection tool, we find that we need to select only a subset of the 
required files we have selected. 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 this folder prior to 
copying, but this is a very inefficient and very slow process if large 
files need to be copied. Moreover, the use of Ctrl+Click to select files 
is not a user-friendly operation - it requires fine motor control to not 
accidentally release the Ctrl key which will cause one to lose the 
entire selection of files.

My solution to this problem is to add a Places option 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. Files can be added to 
this tray by using a right-click context menu option, 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. Hence, complex file 
operations such as moving files across many devices can be made easy by 
staging the operation before performing it.

Therefore, 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, delete, send via 
Bluetooth, create a list of symbolic links, etc. I also plan to 
integrate the KDE Purpose Framework API in Dolphin to improve the 
sharing options of the application as a whole.

The complete details of the project, including usecases, implementation 
details, features, and more can be found here: https://goo.gl/XeszhC

As far as implementation of the project goes, I intend to use a*KIO 
Slave* for having a virtual directory storing the URLs to added files 
added in the File Tray. It will accessible by KDE applications working 
similarly to how bluetooth:/, trash:/, fish:/, etc. work. However, 
complete documentation on writing KIO Slaves is hard to find, so I want 
the opinion of this mailing list on whether a KIO Slave is the best 
approach to this project. The view displaying the File Tray also 
requires some context menu actions specific to it.

This project will later be expanded to include a Plasmoid for the KDE 
desktop, so I feel KIO Slaves would make this much easier to implement. 
I would love to hear the feedback of KDE developers on this matter.
-- 
arnav dhamija

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    <font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Hi!<br>
      <br>
      I am a first year undergraduate student at the university
      interested in contributing to KDE for the 2016 edition for the
      GSoC.<br>
      <br>
      I wish to contribute with an original idea. A short summary of my
      idea is as follows:</font><br>
    <h1 id="firstHeading"><small><small><small><font face="Helvetica,
              Arial, sans-serif">File Trays for making file selection
              easier in Dolphin</font></small> </small></small></h1>
    <p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">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 selecting files using Ctrl+A
        or the selection tool, we find that we need to select only a
        subset of the required files we have selected. 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 this folder prior to copying, but this is a
        very inefficient and very slow process if large files need to be
        copied. Moreover, the use of Ctrl+Click to select files is not a
        user-friendly operation - it requires fine motor control to not
        accidentally release the Ctrl key which will cause one to lose
        the entire selection of files. </font></p>
    <p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">My solution to this
        problem is to add a Places option 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. Files can be added
        to this tray by using a right-click context menu option, 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. Hence, complex file operations such as moving files
        across many devices can be made easy by staging the operation
        before performing it.<br>
      </font></p>
    <p><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Therefore, 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, delete, send via
        Bluetooth, create a list of symbolic links, etc. I also plan to
        integrate the KDE Purpose Framework API in Dolphin to improve
        the sharing options of the application as a whole. </font></p>
    <font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">The complete details of
      the project, including usecases, implementation details, features,
      and more can be found here: <a href="https://goo.gl/XeszhC">https://goo.gl/XeszhC</a><br>
      <br>
      As far as implementation of the project goes, I intend to use a<b>
        KIO Slave</b> for having a virtual directory storing the URLs to
      added files added in the File Tray. It will accessible by KDE
      applications working similarly to how bluetooth:/, trash:/,
      fish:/, etc. work. However, complete documentation on writing KIO
      Slaves is hard to find, so I want the opinion of this mailing list
      on whether a KIO Slave is the best approach to this project. The
      view displaying the File Tray also requires some context menu
      actions specific to it. <br>
      <br>
      This project will later be expanded to include a Plasmoid for the
      KDE desktop, so I feel KIO Slaves would make this much easier to
      implement. I would love to hear the feedback of KDE developers on
      this matter.</font>
    <div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
      <font face="arial">arnav dhamija</font></div>
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