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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Konqueror - suggestions
From:       Trian Karayiannis <tak2 () kent ! ac ! uk>
Date:       2003-07-11 0:22:00
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First, I want to say hi to all the members. I joined the list today and I hope 
I can contribute positively.

I browsed the list archives to find any previous records of what I am about to 
suggest, but I didn't find anything. Forgive me if this has been discussed in 
the past.

What I will say is only meant to cause a healthy discussion on the topics 
mentioned. I do not mean to complain or flame anybody.

--= Intro to 1st topic =--

First thing I wanted to bring up is the hard-binding of two items to toolbars 
in konqueror (in relation to overall toolbar clutter).

One is the view mode buttons (icons VS list views) in the main toolbar.
The other is the necessity (in some way) of the "Location" label to be 
assigned to _some_ toolbar.

The second could probably be better fitted to the kde-bugs list, but I would 
like to bring it up here as well.

--= Explanation =--

The "case study" is as follows: I wanted a single simple toolbar with all the 
most common tasks I do.

-- The main toolbar wasn't fit for that because I could adjust most things, 
but I could not remove some of the buttons (cervisia for one).

So I put everything in the location toolbar, from which I removed the 
"Location" string, and I hid the menu bar. All worked well, apart from that 
the "location" label floated at the top-left corner of the single toolbar 
left. Solution: assign the label to the main toolbar (which I keep hidden).

Right now the location toolbar contains the following items:
[Up][Back][Forward][Reload][Show menubar][home][clear location bar]
[location bar][go][new tab][close tab][animated logo]

The only that's missing and would be nice to see (I wish I *could* write it 
:-( ) is a button to select view modes.

--= Conclusion =--

The initial configuration was a bit tiring for me. There were lots of buttons, 
lots of colours and hence a bit of a clutter. I found that I was really using 
only a small amount of these most of the time, so the rest could well be 
placed in a toolbar that could stay hidden and be enabled at the click of a 
button or two. I also keep the menu bar hidden for the same reasons.

The person/people who wrote the toolbar assumed that I would not want to place 
the viewmode buttons anywhere else. (I don't flame the guy(s), but I hope you 
understand what I mean :-).

What do you guys think about these points?

(on a related note, what I would want to be able to write is a simple window 
decoration with a _small_ [show/hide menubar] button. I find I hardly use the 
menus, and having a small button on the left side of the title bar to 
en/disable them would be neat. Is my idea difficult/possible to write?)

--= 2nd Topic =--

On a similar note to the first topic, I would like to bring up the 
context-sensitive (right-click) menu. Again, I believe there is a bit of a 
clutter. Could there be an "extras" menu, with things like "Find file...", 
"Copy/Move to...", "Add to bookmarks", "Edit file type", "cervisia".
Also giving the user the ability to disable the images on this menu might be a 
welcome addition. Personally I find them distracting.

One other thing I had in mind about this was to put the navigation buttons in 
a single line, rather than 4. I am no C++ programmer, but (from my experience 
with Java) I would imagine this is easily doable. So, instead of Up, Back, 
Forward and Reload taking one line each, they could take 1 line altogether.

(Also, putting the "Open in [new tab | new window | background window]" in 
a submenu would help. But I guess it could be that they are used too 
frequently by others... dunno. :-)

Opinions?

thanks,

Trian

--
Linux user #67408 - http://counter.li.org

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