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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: "UP" Browsing Button
From:       "Steven D'Aprano" <dippy () cosmos ! net ! au>
Date:       2002-10-06 4:57:55
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On Sun,  6 Oct 2002 13:49, Dave Leigh wrote:

> On Saturday 05 October 2002 15:36, Henry Stanaland wrote:
> > Recently I had a friend(who I've had with Mandrake for a while) who
> > normally uses Netscape.  I tried to get her to use Konqueror and
> > the very first thing she said was "Why is there an up button...I've
> > never seen an up button?"
>
> The obvious answer is, "Of COURSE you have! There's one in Explorer,
> but you only see it when you're looking at your local directories.
> Konqueror is more consistent about things. The up button takes you up
> a directory, just like in Explorer."

"I don't want to go up a directory, I'm on the Internet!"

The link between webpages and directories is not an obvious one, and 
"average users" probably won't get it. Many people don't read URLs at 
all, let alone read them as a directory structure.

And then you have the issue that there are many places on the web where 
going up a level gives you an error -- 
somedomain.com/somedirectory/somefile.html exists, but 
somedomain.com/somedirectory is a virtual directory that doesn't allow 
listings.

I'm not saying that the up button should be removed, but you can't 
blame people for not understanding what it does.

[snip]
> I think it's a mistake to take it out of the browser profile. You're
> removing very useful functionality at the cost of consistency.

Agreed.

> Personally, I use the up button quite a lot. It's an improvement over
> MSIE I think, because it's far more consistent. New MSIE users have
> to discover that certain functions appear or disappear when they're
> simply looking at different locations; whereas new Konqueror users
> can take it for granted that the controls work the same whether
> you're looking at a local directory or a website.
>
> I'm not even convinced that it has "THE" best place on the toolbar. I
> also like Opera quite a bit, and it puts those buttons closer to the
> center of the toobar, which makes for a lot less mouse travel when
> the sidebar is open.

Agreed.

I don't think its too bad where it is. I don't think its a real issue.


-- 
Steven D'Aprano
===========================================
"Either he's dead or my watch has stopped."
Groucho Marx, 'A Day at the Races', 1937

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