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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    KUrlNavigator widget usability
From:       Aurélien_Gâteau <aurelien.gateau () free ! fr>
Date:       2008-05-25 21:19:02
Message-ID: 4839D7C6.6070008 () free ! fr
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Hello,


As the maintainer of Gwenview, I am regularly asked to add an "Up" 
button to make it easier to go up in the folder hierarchy.

Gwenview uses KUrlNavigator to display the current folder. This is the 
widget responsible for showing paths as a row of buttons in Dolphin, the 
file dialogs and other applications.

While I could easily add an "Up" button, I think this request 
demonstrate a usability problem with KUrlNavigator. The problem comes 
from the way KUrlNavigator handles "places" (the starting locations 
placed on the left sidebar in Dolphin):

When you click on a place, KUrlNavigator replace the current row of 
buttons with a row starting from the place you clicked. Here is an example:

Let's say I am in /home/aurelien/kdesvn/kdelibs/kdeui. KUrlNavigator 
looks like this:

   [Home] [>] [kdesvn] [>] [kdelibs] [>] [kdeui]

I keep all my pictures of the year in /home/aurelien/pictures/2008. I 
added this folder as a place named "2008 pictures" to Dolphin sidebar. 
If I click the place, KUrlNavigator now looks like this:

   [2008 pictures]

If I ever want to go to /home/aurelien/pictures/2007, I need to either 
switch KUrlNavigator in edit mode, or click on the "Home" place and 
navigate to the right folder.

I can see two possible solutions to this:


# The Gtk+ way

Gtk+ offers a similar dialog, but its behavior is a bit different. In my 
previous example, It would have looked like this on the start:

   [<] [aurelien] [kdesvn] [kdelibs] [kdeui]

Clicking on "2008 pictures" would have turned it to look like this:

   [<] [aurelien] [pictures] [2008]

As you can see, it always starts from the home folder, making it easier 
to go up to "pictures" and then down to "2007".

The only hidden part is the "/home" part. It can be revealed by clicking 
on the [<] button, which would turn my latest state into this:

   [/] [home] [aurelien] [pictures] [2008]


# Variant of the Gtk+ way

Basically the idea is that everything above the place would be hidden, 
but a [<] button would be added to reveal the hidden part.

Clicking on "2008 pictures" would make KUrlNavigator looks like this:

   [<] [2008 pictures]

Clicking on the [<] button would expand it like this:

   [/] [home] [aurelien] [pictures] [2008]


What do you think about this? I personally like the first solution 
better because it gives more context about where the user is, at the 
cost of some horizontal space. I am even willing to implement the 
changes if we agree the current behavior is suboptimal.

Aurélien
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