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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: Again - UI feedback from a Linux newbie (was Radio button
From:       Andreas Pour <pour () mieterra ! com>
Date:       2000-04-24 20:04:06
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Rik Hemsley wrote:
> 
> #if Steven D'Aprano
> > Just tossing out a wild idea here, but if someone was brave enough,
> > they could create a system that mapped real files in a file system to
> > (for want of a better term) packages in a hierarchical package system.
> > Sort of like RPM on steroids :-)
> 
> RISC OS has done this since '92ish. The ROX desktop tries to
> emulate it. KDE goes some way towards this with its .desktop files,
> in that it hides filesystem information. RISC OS does more - it
> allows a directory to be an application. To remove an application,
> you just remove the 'file' (which is actually a directory). To
> run the application, you just click the icon representing its
> directory.
> 
> Implementing this is easy. The hard part is persuading distributors
> that apps should not be installed such that their files are spread
> around the system, with root priviledges required.

Actually, I think giving Konqueror's design this might not be hard to
do.  What you need is another "Active Directory", like kfm used to have
with .kdelnk files (or even using a .kde file).  When you enter this
special directory (perhaps call it /Programs), instead of giving a
directory listing, Konqi embeds kpackage (which works pretty well with
all distribution packages) and shows the heirarhical view of all
installed packages.  Using kpackage, you can then browse all the files
included as part of the package, or delete the package, or whatever. 
Kpackage has to be improved a bit, I think, to handle this, but not too
much.

Looking at the most recent kpackage, it is really excellent and already
has a lot of the features you would want:

	(1)  a tree view of all installed packages -- should not be hard to
convert this to a directory/folder view of installed packages;
	(2)  ability to see all files installed for each package -- should not
be hard to convert this to a "virtual" filesystem view;
	(3)  by clicking on an installed file it is opened (a binary file is
executed, a text file opened in kedit, a directory opened in the file
browser, etc.).  If kpackage is converted to use a folder view rather
than the list view it currently uses for files which belong to a
package, it would be even more transparent -- i.e., instead of listing
the files in a separate window like kpackage does, once you click on a
package you enter a "virtual" file system that starts at '/' and where
you can descend down to each installed file, and each file would be
displayed using the proper mimetype icon.  That way the file system
would not be so confusing to newbies and it would be easy to find each
file that belongs to a package. 

Anyway, rather than re-invent the wheel, I am trying to look how to use
existing tools to accomplish this, and it does not seem like it would be
a great deal of work.

Ciao,

Andreas

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