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List:       kfm-devel
Subject:    Re: view "follows" (tree)view
From:       Simon Hausmann <tronical () gmx ! net>
Date:       1999-06-29 16:51:12
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On Tue, 29 Jun 1999, Waldo Bastian wrote:

> Simon Hausmann wrote:
> 
> > Now the problems:
> > 
> > 1) I'm not sure whether we should make this a general feature,
> >    meaning that the parent can be any kind of view or whether 
>      we should restrict this on the treeview.
> 
> >From a technical point of view... if it is not too hard: Yes
> See also my next point.
> 
> > 2) *How* should the user be able to select such a binding? 
> >    The problem here is also: Would be menu entries like 
> >    "follow view on the left/right" sufficient?
> > 
> > GUI design gurus, please speak up! :-) We need an easy way 
> > (for the user) to say: "Hey, make this one follow that one" or 
> > "Hi, please follow this treeview" . 
> > I think this is difficult in a multiple-view environment like
> > Konqy. 
> 
> Konqy can do a lot but it doesn't mean we should let the user
> do all this. (Unless he really really wants to)
> 
> [SNIP]
> > I would really like to see such a feature, but I have no 
> > clue how I as user would like to create this binding.
> 
> As a user, you don't.
> 
> Let me explain:
> 
> Konqy has great flexibility in how its views behave. Basically
> you can configure 25 features independently of each other.
> 
> That is great. But it isn't user friendly. I don't want to spend
> 5 days configuring my filebrowser before it does something
> usefull.
> 
> The views should do something logical, smart and ergonomic all
> by themselves. 
> 
> Perhaps we should have "view-configuration profiles". That means
> that a user can select a profile and that konqy shows a set of
> views which are linked to each other in some way. E.g. the 
> "copy files profile". Which shows two directories from which
> you can exchange/copy files.
> 
> Or the "browse images profile" which shows a directory in one 
> view and images (using a kview-part) in the other.
> 
> Of course there is an option to create these profiles all by your
> self and hack 25 views which all show something different but
> the main idea is that we provide a set of profiles which are just
> very easy to use and which can selected with a single click.
> 
> There shouldn't be a "delete view" or "add view" menu option.
> That is much too dificult to manage. Click the web-browser
> profile and you get one big view with KHTML. Click the web-author
> profile and you get 3 views: one with the directory, one with
> KHTML and one with the output from web-lint. 
> 
> We can make a big repository of profiles and let the user drag 
> the profiles he wants to use to the toolbar.
> 
> To be user friendly KDE needs to be smart, it should offer the
> user what it wants without the user needing to explain every
> detail. (E.g. the user should just be able to push a single 
> button to rearrange the whole browser for a given usage)
> 
> But we don't must outsmart the user. KDE can never predict 100%
> what a user wants. So we must leave the user the option to 
> correct KDE's smart behaviour when he doesn't like it.
> (E.g. The user should be able to edit the profiles to his own
> taste)
> 
> The priority is also very important. 1st smart. 2nd configurable.
> The user shouldn't NEED to configure the bloody thing. He hasn't
> bought a computer to configure his filemanager (we KDE developers
> on the other hand....) He wants to browse the web... and then 
> view his collection of photos... and then install a new game
> he bought... He only wants to reorganize the way his views work
> when he is a) very bored or b) they annoy the hell out of him.

WOW!! Well done, Waldo!!! This is impressive! I can only agree. :-)

What do the others think?

What's left is:

1) How to "define" view profiles? using KConfig (possible?)?

2) Seems we need a small view-profile-editor widget, or?

3) How to let the user choose a view profile?
   I like your idea of a toolbar-button, so we might have a dnd'able
   toolbar-button (so that the user can dnd a profile-file from anywhere).
   And when the user clicks on the button (perhaps with a delay) , it
   could transform into a popup-menu for the quick-n-easy profile
   selection, with all installed profiles (and a dragged profile could be
   copied into .../share/config/konqueror/vprofiles/ then)

Ciao,
  Simon (really impressed by Waldo's view-profile ideas :-)

--
Simon Hausmann       <hausmann@kde.org>
http://www.kde.org/  <tronical@gmx.net>

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