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List:       kfm-devel
Subject:    [Fwd: Ideas for Konquerer]
From:       Waldo Bastian <bastian () ens ! ascom ! ch>
Date:       1999-06-25 15:12:57
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Ideas for Konquerer
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 16:17:04 +0200
From: "Seehuber, Emmeran" <E.Seehuber@Mylius.com>
To: Waldo Bastian <bastian@ens.ascom.ch>

Ok, here it is.
--
Hi !

iīve got some ideas for Konquerer. Yesterday i got
it running, and it looks great. (Ok, itīs a little instabl ... )

Unfortunately Konquerer orients it self very close on the
MS Internet Explorer. Since IE4 the Explorer can also
integrate Word, and such things; Of course, not as nice
as Konquerer, but ... :-)

The suggestions, which I have, concern particularly the 
file manager part of Konquerer. But perhaps it could also 
be a great feature for all other parts of KDE.

The handling of Konquerer corresponds to allmost 100% to 
the Explorer logic: Toilsomely select files with the mouse,
and drop somewhere, or using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-v.

You canīt do much more.

DirOpus 5 on the Amiga does here a better job. 

In general each FileManager-Window of DirOpus has a 
"operationstatus":
- None
- Sourcewindow
- Destinationwindow
- Locked as sourcewindow
- Locked as destinationationwindow

If you have minimum two windows open, youīve always a 
source and a destination window. Normaly, the window 
activated last is the sourcewindow.
The before-lastly window is the destinationwindow. If you 
want to have a certain window as source or dest, you can 
lock the window in this state.

To select files in a window, you just make a simple click 
on them.   Contrary to Konquerer and IE4, you donīt loose your
selection, if you select an other file. It will just toggle 
the selectionstate. And of course, there also exists the NothernCommander alike \
"+"-Key and the "-"-Key to select and deselect files matching a pattern.

Now, if you have selected a source window, a destination 
window and files in the source window, you can execute a 
operation.

A operation is like a script. It can be executed via 
customizeable toolbars, menus and popups. It consists of 
a set of instruction, of those everyone could be a:
- Internal command (e.g. Copy, Move, Delete; 
  But also e.g. Select (to modify the selection) or Cd),
- ARexx commands (ARexx does not exists on Unix, 
  but perhaps Perl or Phyton could be used in place of it) 
  or a 
- External commands (shell commands)

Each of this commands gets parameters via substitute symbols 
(like %s in printf()).
The parameters are e.g.:
- All selected files in the sourcewindow with/without the 
  full path
- All selected directory in the sourcewindow with/without 
  the full path
- All selected entrys (files&directorys) in the sourcewindow
  with/without the full path
- Directory of the sourcewindow, and so on.
- The same of course for the destination window
- Special substitute symbols for things like "Open an 
  filedialog and return the selected file".

With this, you could just easy do a copy:

copy {sf} {dd}

Where: 
- copy is an internal command of DirOpus
- {sf} is the substitute symbol for sourcefiles with full path
- {dd} is the substitute symbol for destination directory

Or create an archive:

tar cvzf {fr:Please select archive name}.tgz {sf}

Where:
- tar is a well known external command
- {fr:<title for filedialog>} opens a filedialog and returns 
the selected filename.
- {sf} substitutes to the sourcefiles.

Just quite simple. With this mechanism you can do all possible 
and impossible things, and create your personal power environment.

I am now too lazy to assemble my Amiga again to make screenshots. 
But if you want some, i would make it gladly.

---

Ok, but how to do this in KDE ?

- Each view of Konquerer must get a operatorstatus. This 
  should be displayed in the "titlebar" of the view via a
  small icon. If you click on this icon, a popupmenu is 
  displayed, with you let selected the lockstatus (locked as
  source or as dest) of the view.
- You should be able to insert custom KDE-Links in the menu, 
  the popups and the toolbars of Konquerer. Also it should 
  be possible to build own toolbars from KDE-Links.
- With a toolbar button it should be possible to toggle the
  selectionmode of Konquerer to the selectionmode of DirOpus. 
- KDE-Links should get extended:
 - Per link it should be possible to have more than one command. 
   The commandlist is displayed in a listbox. At the bottom of 
   the list is an edit where you can enter the command. And of 
   course, buttons to add, delete and orderchange (Up&Down) the
   commands. Also a button, which would bring a list of all 
   avaible substitute symbols would be nice.
 - Additional flags:
   - Execute command syncron/asyncron. (May be interesting with 
     the KDE-Links of the Konquerer)
   - Execute the command in a X-terminal. Would be nice to see 
     the output of the shellcommands.
- A substitute symbols and internal command registration place 
should be created.
  All programs, which provieds substitute symbols and internal 
commands register there. E.g. Konquerer registers there to
provide the substitute symbols and internal commands mentioned 
above. A programm "CommDlg" could register there to provide the
substitute symbol for the fileselectdialog. KWord could provide
the name of the actual document and internal commands to open&
print documents.
  
In COM i would create the registration place using a singleton 
object. But i donīt known how to do this in CORBA. I think, the
programms should register theire substitute symbols at runtime 
when they get loaded. -- But perhaps it makes more sence to save 
the registration to disk, and load the programms on the demand.

---

What do you think about this ?

Iīm sorry, but at the moment i donīt have any time to do anything of this.

cu,
 Emmy


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