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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Drag and Drop Up-One-Level
From:       "Jamethiel Knorth" <jamethknorth () hotmail ! com>
Date:       2004-05-08 17:44:03
Message-ID: BAY7-F58OWuH1dOMjQK0000bcb4 () hotmail ! com
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>From: Stian Søiland <stian@soiland.no>
>Date: Sat, 8 May 2004 19:23:48 +0200
>
>On 2004-05-07 21:44:01, Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri wrote:
>
> > > (therefor, if you have created two dirs, with hard-linked
> > > files, it could be possible to see that files in both dirs are
> > > hardlinked - and therefore that they MIGHT be the same files - 
>avoiding
> > > editing a file that should have been a copy)
> > ???
>
>Ok, I'll try to make it clearer. Just like ls -l prints the reference
>count, files that have several names should have that indicated in some
>way:
>
>   Dir 1:
>
>   [    ] file1.txt
>   [   2] file2.txt
>   [    ] file3.txt
>
>
>   Dir 2:
>
>   [    ] file1.txt
>   [   2] file2.txt
>   [    ] file4.txt
>   [   2] file5.txt
>
>[   ] should be thought of as the normal TXT icon. For files that are
>hard linked, the reference count could be superimposed onto the icon.
>This indicates that this file doesn't only appear in this directory.

You're right there should be some indication, but I don't think it needs 
that much prominence. I would prefer to have it in the tooltip, the 
properties page, and the status bar. The fact is, usually it doesn't matter.

>This could be important if you need 700 MB diskspace, and you try to
>delete your redhat73.iso - but nothing happens since it's also hard
>linked somewhere else. (There's no easy way to backreference those other
>file names without searching the whole volume. That could be an option
>from the "Preferences"-dialog, though.)

A possibility to help avoid this would be to have a warning dialog when you 
delete only one of a set of linked files. Of course, leave in an option to 
never show it again. It could possibly even have the option to remove those 
files as well.

>Another issue is when a skilled user (but not yet an expert user) is
>learning about this hard linking-stuff, and he needs to know the
>difference between copying and linking.
>
>If he drags a file somewhere with "linking" - and then afterwards both
>files changes icon - it would be easier for him to understand that what
>he did affected both files, and that he hasn't created a symbolic link.
>
>One issue is if displaying the number is really useful. Most files with
>more than 1 link (except directories) would have 2 links. More links are
>less common. User's might expect that the two files are different, that
>one is #1 and the other #2, specially when only one of them are present.
>They would then search all over for #1 with no luck.
>
>Some other nice icon could of course be used in the superimposing. I
>don't know what would be appropriate. It would be very important to
>differenciate it from a symbolic link. If people mess up hardlinks and
>symbolic links, bad things could happen.

I think that a chain is often used for linking, and that could be placed in 
the corner or the icon, just as with linked frames in Konqueror. That 
wouldn't be ugly either. Definitely, I am opposed to the number, though. 
Type in icons is bad.

>Symbolic links are in many ways 'weaker' - you cannot delete the
>original file and keep the linked version. You cannot move around on the
>original file - or the linked one if it's relative. On the other hand -
>symbolic links work crossdevice, so you could have a symlink to a shared
>resource from your home directory.
>
>(in my opinion, symbolic links are best for directories, hard links for
>files. Hard linked directories are usually not possible without deep
>hacking.)
>
>
> > AND, konqueror as a File Manager should provide every possible way to 
>manage
> > files. If the problem is instructing users, put it in the docs, KTips 
>and
> > tooltips.
> > 	It's really strange you can zip, encrypt and do thousand of
> > non-file-management stuff using konqueror but cannot create a simple
> > hardlink.
>
>I agree that it should be possible to create hardlinks - as an option.
>Maybe it needs to be called something else since most common users don't
>understand that ALL file names are links to the inode - that again have
>the metadata and links to the actual file contents. People feel that
>when they save a file in a directory - that's where it IS.
>
>Maybe "Add another filename (hardlink)" or something like that?

That's just too long for that little menu, as are most good names. Some 
things use Clone for creating pairs, but that implies that they do not 
remain linked.

Would it be possible to sort of drop a help button just anywhere? Like, have 
the menu have a question mark right-aligned after the Hardlink option, where 
clicking on the question-mark shows What's This? help without closing the 
menu?

Meh, not a good solution, just tossing ideas around.

_________________________________________________________________
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