As usual after the KDE feature freeze, I'd like to give an overview which improvements have been done in Dolphin for the next KDE SC.
Searching
I wrote already about the search improvements some months ago. In the meantime Sebastian Trüg has extended Nepomuk by facets and integrated them as "Filter Panel" into Dolphin:
The facets provide a very comfortable way for the user to shrink the number of search results. From a developers point of view those facets are a great thing too: It is easy to integrate them into an application. A lot of default facets are offered by Nepomuk, but it is also possible to embed custom facets.
As mentioned earlier Dolphin now allows to search for files even if Nepomuk is disabled, however the "Filter Panel" is a feature that only works in combination with Nepomuk and indexed files (at least for KDE SC 4.6).
Beside this improvements also other finetuning has been done for searching:
- The default view has been changed to show the path.
- The context menu allows to open the search result in a new tab or window.
Column View
Some long overdue improvements have been done for the column view:
- The column width can be changed by the user.
- The column width automatically is extended to the longest filename.
- Rubberband selection like in the icons-view and details-view is possible.
- Neighbor columns are always aligned in a way that it is possible to navigate through all columns without using the horizontal scrollbar.
Git Plugin
Sebastian Dörner and Johannes Steffen have implemented a Git plugin for Dolphin. It is part of the kdesdk-package.
Other Improvements
- Folders Panel: Improved automatic horizontal scrolling (can be disabled now too).
- Improved context-menu when no file is selected
- Multiple renaming: It is now possible to provide leading zeros if wanted (patch implemented by Matthias Fuchs)
- Service menus
- ... and of course a lot of bug fixes
27 comments:
Great job! Faceted navigation is going to be great!
I am passionate about Dolphin, which is weird considering it is 'just' a file manager!
One thing I miss from the 4.4 version is that I could have an icon in the toolbar to bring up the terminal (rather than pressing F4). I'm guesiing this was a deliberate decision but I for one miss it : (
concerning the search panel: shouldn't the date and rating options be radiobuttons rather than checkboxes? It only makes sense to choose one of them at a time.
But I think the best would be sliders: they make sense here and could save some space, too.
For dolphin, Users need: a search entry by default (visible) as in 4.4.
They do not care if nepomuk/strigi is running or not. the generic search box should use nepomuk/strigi if available/running else just do a standard 'find' like kfind. but with a simple search box interface.
There is no need to separate the search box previously with the new 'find' in 4.6.
great to see further improvements. but sadly dolphin still behaves very slow in some situations. e.g. opening my music collection (many thousand folders) took some time (~20secs) whereas nautilus or thunar are faster (~5secs) (all without details, thumbnails etc.)
perhaps we see some improvements in this area for kde 4.7....
I still miss a way to reduce the size of the treeview, by allowing the user to use the closest place as root or by having an extra panel which combines places+tree, the same way it works with gwenview.
Other than that great job! :)
So now users can select multiple choises from the filter panel?
Like seeing only files with rating 1, 3 and 5 but not files rated 2 and 4?
And having possibility to select a range of the date like week 45 only or only mondays from last month?
The "documents" is still so wide definition that it should be dropped off. What really is a document file? A PDF what is a photo slideshow? A group of photos?
A project file from kdenlive is a document or video?
hopefully someone adds a good old fashion calender view to the filter bar and possibility to type document type.
@Anonymous #1:
> One thing I miss from the 4.4
> version is that I could have an
> icon in the toolbar to bring up
> the terminal
Could you please provide a bug-report at bugs.kde.org? It's impossible to track all requests from bugs.kde.org combined with all comments from all blog-entries... Thanks!
@Anonymous #2:
> concerning the search panel:
> shouldn't the date and rating
> options be radiobuttons rather
> than checkboxes?
Yes, I'll forward this to Sebastian...
@Anonymous #4:
> dolphin still behaves very
> slow in some situations.
Did you provide a report at bugs.kde.org for this? It might be related that Dolphin shows the number of sub-directories in the details view (which AFAIK is not done in Nautilus and Thunar). Getting this information takes more time... But please provide an entry at bugs.kde.org with more detailed information (Dolphin version, used view-mode, how many directories, ...). Thanks!
@Anonymous #5:
> I still miss a way to
> reduce the size of the treeview
Please also submit a report at bugs.kde.org because of the reasons mentioned above. Thanks!
@Fri13:
> So now users can select multiple
> choises from the filter panel?
It depends: Currently for some facets checkboxes are shown although radioboxes should be shown (e. g. rating). This will be fixed by Sebastian before 4.6 I guess.
Thumbs up for "The Count of Tuscany"!
And thumbs up for Dolphin too!
> @Anonymous #5:
>> I still miss a way to
>> reduce the size of the treeview
>
> Please also submit a report at bugs.kde.org because of the reasons mentioned above. Thanks!
I did post a similar request some time ago, here:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=231423
I've just added a new response, in order to cover the option of merging places and tree in a single new panel
Regards
Suh-weeeeet!
This looks awesome Peter. Great work! Can't wait to see packages for 4.6 to come out so I can play with this.
You rock! :D
Any chance of seeing a panel that allows selecting of recently used folders as easy as the "Places" panel lets us access bookmarked locations?
This is what I've been longing for since 4.0 I'd be happy to trade equal hours of artwork / web design / documentation writing / 3D animation / Press release writing for any project of your choice... :)
Hey dude,
Good work in the Dolphin development. Just curious, is there a way to open a directory (folder)in new window by middle clicking it?
If it is possible, where can I find the appropriate setting?
If it is not yet possible, could you please implement it?
Thanks for the help.
LJ
Thanks for improving Dolphin!
One thing I really miss is 'copy as'. I can copy a file anywhere and rename it, but it would be a real timesaver to right click on a file > choose 'copy as' > write the new name > drop the file in a new directory. OS/2 had this option 15 years ago... ;)
Preferences / General / Context Menu
You should see something there :)
@Anonymous
Why we should have a entry in context menu for "copy as" for same folder?
OS/2 copied over the file if it was on same folder.
Dolphin (And konqueror behind the start) allows you just to copy and when you paste, it asks user what he wants to do. By default, it asks new name. You can just type your own name and press enter, or click "suggest new name" and OK.
Much easier to do than the way what you mentioned.
"Copy as"? What are you talking about? If I go to "Preferences / General / Context Menu" there is an option for enabling "Copy to" and "Move to". You don't need to paste or anything, you just locate the destination folder and then "Copy here".
Ok, I misread. From the beginning I was thinking about "Copy to" hehe
My fault
Hmm. What can I say. Dolphin is one of the finest applications in KDE.
Peter, you have a gift for usability. If only others would learn from you :)
--
Mark Kretschmann
Is the filter panel always visible?
Or is it shown on-demand when the search bar is opened?
In this case, how does it interoperate with exsting panels? Does it replace them, or is it added next to them?
@Bugsbane:
> Any chance of seeing a panel that
> allows selecting of recently used
> folders as easy as the "Places"
> panel lets us access bookmarked
> locations?
You mean a panel to access the history? It is not planned currently, probably it would be better to provide a drop-down button to the back-button of the toolbar - I'm not sure...
@Anonymous:
> Is there a way to open a
> directory (folder)in new window
> by middle clicking it?
No, middle clicking opens it only in a new tab.
> If it is not yet possible, could
> you please implement it?
It is not planned currently. Could you please provide a wish at bugs.kde.org? This allows other people to comment and I get a feeling whether this feature is requested by more people. Thanks!
@Mark: Thanks :-)
@Anonymous:
> Is the filter panel always visible?
> Or is it shown on-demand when the
> search bar is opened?
It is shown on-demand when the search bar is shown. But it is possible for the user to let the filter panel be visible always.
> In this case, how does it
> interoperate with exsting panels?
> Does it replace them, or is it
> added next to them?
It behaves like any other panel and is added next to them. But this can be changed by the user (like now for the other panels).
Seems people here didn't understand what I meant by 'copy as'. Probably my fault.
When I drag a file from, say, Dolphin's right hand window to its left hand window, I get 4 options:
Move here
Copy here
Link here
Cancel
What I would like to see is a 5th option:
Copy as (here).
By choosing this option, one would be presented with a small frame pop-up where one could write the new name and click 'OK'.
If this functionality exists already in Dolphin, I'be glad to know where exactly it is implemented.
Is it possible to navigate between directories in column view without double cliking on them, even if you set double click to open files, as on Mac Os X?
The need to double click on every directory makes column view quite uncomfortable, when compared to Mac Os X Finder, even if for avery other thing dolphin is WAY better than the Finder!
@Anonymous1 and Peter: There is a bug report requesting the re-implementation of the terminal emulator as toolbar button:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=250847
Sorry people, it's simply crap. For about the 4th or 5th time I have lost all taags attached to files and the ability to find them. Why don't withdraw the people in charge at KDE the whole thing and make it fit for a beta test (which nothing in KDE4.* appears to be) before releasing it? Finally giving up on KDE applications now. I need a working system. 3.5x did work, 4.x is unstable and not usable for production.
I think Dolphin is superb. Having recently moved from Windows it is much more powerful and configurable.
One thing that I miss from v1.5 is the ability to search on file size where you can select the size - not just small/medium/large.
Great job though I find it annoying that with really long folder or file names the whole thing expands the full width of the screen sometimes. Would be good to be able to set a max width
The coolest thing to me, by the way, is that you have "An Evening With...." in your photo. Thought I was the only one on earth that loves that CD! :)
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