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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: "Open locations" vs "all locations"
From:       Maurizio Colucci <seguso.forever () tin ! it>
Date:       2004-05-19 6:45:03
Message-ID: 1084949102.2611.13.camel () dhcppc0
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On Wed, 2004-05-19 at 04:01, Jamethiel Knorth wrote:
> >From: Maurizio Colucci <seguso.forever@tin.it>
> >Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 19:07:53 -0700
> >
> >On Tuesday 18 May 2004 03:18, Peter Postmus wrote:
> >
> > > I've been reading this thread from beginning to end.
> >
> >This is so unexpected! ;-)
> >
> > > Here's my opinion:
> > >
> > > - Two Konq's displaying the same location should always be possible (by
> > > navigating to the location or selecting it in the bookmarks list of the
> > > allready opened Konq).
> >
> >Agreed.
> >
> > > - If one location is allready open on the current desktop, and you 
> >select a
> > > bookmarked location from e.g. the sidebar, it makes sense to me not to 
> >open
> > > a new Konq, but bring up the existing one.
> >
> >Agreed.
> >
> > > - If the location is only open on another desktop, open the location in 
> >a
> > > new Konq on the current desktop.
> >
> >Agreed.
> >
> > > - Merging allready opened locations, bookmarks and recent locations: I'm
> > > not sure. I think most users think of bookmarks as a place to store
> > > interesting locations for a long-term use. OTOH, maybe users will
> > > appreciate a single list containing all of these items.
> > >
> > > Open locations and recent locations are different story; they should be
> > > combined IMO.
> >
> >I am going to change topic and propose something very radical now, please
> >don't flame me.
> >
> >I thought this over, and I believe the concept of "open location" could be
> >removed, and that both the usability and the simplicity would increase.
> >(I mean, we only should have the concept of "bookmarked location" and 
> >"recent
> >location".)
> >
> >So, HOW can we remove the concept of "open location" and why should we? I
> >suggest this:
> >
> >1) on the panel, we have 2 buttons: "recent locations" and "bookmarked
> >locations". When clicked, they pop a list of locations. The "bookmarked"
> >button is already available BTW.
> 
> Adding a 'Recent Locations' option is a good idea. (more on this but not on 
> this at the bottom)
> 
> >2) konqueror windows don't have <- and -> buttons anymore (because the list 
> >of
> >recent locations must be global, not one per konqueror window).
> 
> You do not remove the back/forward buttons. They are too useful. They are 
> well know. No. Will never happen. Should never happen. No. No. No.

I knew you would have reacted like this, because you don't care about
redundancy, about unifications, about having a minimal paradigm. I have
come to love this because it's so alien to my way of thinking;-)

To be realistic: it IS true that removing something, and changing
paradigm, can make users angry (see what is happening with spatial
nautilus). BUT it's also true (IMHO) that if you introduce something,
you better remove more complexity than you are introducing, otherwise
you didn't do a simplification, you just added complexity. Good
innovations are the ones that remove more complexity than they
introduce... I would call them "simplifying features". Often they unify
two concepts that were distinct, so they can be called "paradigm
unifications".

> >3) When you enter ANY directory from ANY open instance of konqueror, the 
> >new
> >directory is added to the recent list, on top. (So we don't have one list 
> >for
> >each konqueror instance: just a global list.)
> 
> Good, just keep separate from the back/forward setup. Basically, this is a 
> truncated version of the history.

I am glad you agree.

> >4) Only one location is visible at a time. i.e., only one konqueror window 
> >is
> >open at any given time. (To change location, you can either enter 
> >directories
> >by double clicking inside konqueror, or use one of the two lists)
> 
> Restricting the number of used windows is an enormous step backwards.

I'm sorry, I was just plain wrong. This is not only unnecessary, it also
contradicts point 3: the purpose of point 3 is that lists are global,
not relative to a konqueror instance; and now I say I want only one
instance! Sorry.

> >5) Konqueror does not display the current location on the title bar anymore
> >(you can find that on top of the recent list anyway!)
> 
> But the title bar is a more useful and consistent place for it. Also, you 
> want to force me to have this 'recent' bar. Why?

Because otherwise I have not removed the concept of "open location",
therefore I haven't simplified the usage of KDE.

Anyway, I would like to modify point 5:

(5 bis) konqueror windows don't appear in the taskbar at all.

So the user is can't see the list of open locations, and is forced to
use either recent locations or bookmarked locations. Otherwise we have
no somplification, we are just increasing the complexity.

> >6) We remove tabs ;-)
> 
> No. Again, massive step backwards.

I don't know how tabs can be integrated in this approach...

> >This is difficult to explain...
> >
> >I am going to implement this in segusoLand to test its effectiveness.
> >
> >NOTE: The reason why we have the concept of open locations is that we have 
> >the
> >taskbar: the taskbar is a means to list open WINDOWS.  And this is good.  
> >But
> >the error is IMHO that there is a window for each location, the taskbar
> >indirectly becomes a means to see open location.
> >
> > > Btw, my desktop (KDE 3.2.2) doesn't show a list of an open locations 
> >when I
> > > click the Konqueror button (taskbar). Are you using CVS?
> >
> >
> >No, I was talking about taskbar grouping. When you click on the taskbar, 
> >and
> >you use taskbar grouping, and you have many konq windows, you get a list.
> >This can be seen as the list of open locations.
> 
> 
> On that thing from above, about recent locations:
> 
> I've been thinking for a while that there should be a 'Recent' tool that is 
> universal in Konqueror. 

Yes. I hope this can be achieved, since it's the point we all agree on.

> There may be something of the sort already, I don't 
> know. It would be basically like the 'Recent Documents' button in most 
> programs, 

It doesn't work well for locations... if you open konqueror and you
enter a directory (e.g. double clicking), the new dir isn't added to the
recent documents. Otherwise it would be perfect!

> but all stored together. The idea is that this central system 
> would sort everything through a database so that you could look at the data 
> in a lot of ways, such as 'by program' and 'by document type'.


Yes, I like the idea that recent items could be sorted not only by time.

> What would be great is having it accessible through an ioslave, so I could 
> browse recent:/ in Konqueror and see a couple of folders for ways to browse 
> the history, and then dig through it the same as I do everything else. Also, 
> you could get to that history from the file dialog.
> 
> Just tossing that out there as an idea.

cheers!

Maurizio

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