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http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8333         




------- Additional Comments From tyrerj acm org  2006-02-28 22:54 -------
> many computer users actually fear using a file browser beyond "my documents"
> because they think they will break something.

Probably true, and somewhat odd since on a properly installed Linux system, they can't break anything outside of their HOME directory.  Actually, the one place where they can break something is in their HOME directory (and the so-called hidden subdirectories) which is why I suggest that the default setup have the local Home point to "~/Files" (which corresponds to "My Documents" -- people say it doesn't, but check a Windows installation).  That is where my Home button points.

I see some issues with what you propose.  From a usability perspective, it isn't a good idea to have states because the user might forget which state their in (ambiguous states are worse).  Our current setup lets you go to the web in the "file manager" and manage files in the "web browser"  This is not good and I don't see anyway to change this.  Even if we had profiles that would change based on the protocol (HTTP, FTP, FILE, etc.) it would still be best to have two HOME buttons (web home and "My Documents"), otherwise, you would need to have some way to change the mode of the browser in order to go to the HOME that you wanted.

> web-browser mode (http:// or ftp://.  

I don't think so.  Currently we use the file manager (the KFM part) for FTP, should we change this?  This is a further confusion for users.

I am also asserting that another source of confusion is that users seem to think that web browsing and local browsing are different things.  This would be OK as long as it doesn't result in ambiguous states.  My suggestion to avoid this issue is to have profiles based on the protocol in use.  If this were the case then clicking on one of the two Home buttons would also select (indirectly) the profile to be used.

Note that this needs to be setup so that users don't have to use different profiles if they don't want to.  I suggest that there be a default "Browser" profile which would be used unless one were defined for the protocol being used.  If profiles are used in this way, saving URLs would need to be a separate function.