On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, slaout wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I've done some brainstomring on how to make KIO slaves better known AND
> used!
> Actually it seem to be a dark feature many users don't know the
> existence.

I agree with you here, the KIO slave technology is one of the most 
powerful and most unknown features in KDE.

> A complete explanation with screenshots is available here:
> http://slaout.linux62.org/kde-wishs/kio-wizard/

I might have another way to quickly access other KIO slaves, like this:

We split the location bar into two parts, the protocol part and the 
address part. The protocol part is a drop-down combo that lists available 
KIO slaves like file:/ fish:// ftp:// etc. We could even show a brief 
description right next to each entry. The actual location bar will only 
contain the path within the selected KIO slave.

This solution has one problem (and maybe more), you can't select the whole 
location string anymore. You can select www.google.com, but not 
http://www.google.com.

This could be solved by leaving the location bar untouched and popup a KIO 
combo when the user hovers the mouse pointer over the protocol part of 
the location string, much like the hover close buttons on Konqueror's 
tabs. This will leave everything as it is now, unless you hover your mouse 
over the left end of the location bar. Manually typing full URL's in the 
address bar will still work. Also, it will be possible to make the combo 
optional. Power users may not like it.

It might be convenient if the drop-down combo lists the most used 
protocols first, followed by a complete listing of all available KIO 
slaves. Clicking on the combo with the help-pointer should show the full 
manual of the selected KIO slave.

Anyway, I agree that the KIO slaves deserve more user attention, somehow.

Cheers,

Dik