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This is an idea for Dolphin. Saved views are a way to take the entire current view, everything you can set under “view properties” as well as panels and panel locations, splits, etc., and store it for later use on other folders. This would most likely take the form of a submenu in the “view” menu and/or a menu button. It would show a list of all current saved views, as well as a button at the end for “create new...” that would allow you to name the current view and store it to the list. That way you can then use it wherever you want. This is based on SeaJey's suggestion here.


This is part of my series of Dolphin ideas

This is a very good idea, but it would help if you could flush it out more. Instead of saying, "everything you can set under view properties" it woul be good to spell out exactly what properties will be saved.

konqueror has this. it\'s a nightmare, both from the integration side as well as the usability side. before this feature should even be considered, those practical issues need to be sorted first.

What is these *saved views* would be more like analogue/replacement (indirectly) to *icon*/*detail*/*coulumn* views. In another word - a group of settings. They should be available as any other button (dynamic) in toolbar like the *icon view*/*split* etc. so user could add them simply.


From user side:
* When you select detail mode, most likely you would want to get information sidebar too

* When you select icon mode without preview, terminal, folders and info bars is not important to you

* When you select icon mode WITH preview, bigger icons and info sidebar must be present.

*etc.

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How to do it?

(If it is possible), these buttons could be as a scripts. Scripts that says "on select"/ or "on leave" do this: change layout + icons size. Since scripts has conditional sentences, thy could work as condition sentences, like keep previous settings, if they where set manually, or like min-height, or even dynamically add webRoot/build to places, when on *Dev* group. On preview - multimedia collection folders etc.

aseigo wrote:konqueror has this. it\'s a nightmare, both from the integration side as well as the usability side. before this feature should even be considered, those practical issues need to be sorted first.

Yes, it is a nightmare because it was done wrong. You don\'t like to hear this, but it is a common problem that can be summed up with a bromide borrowed from carpentry: \'Design twice and code once\'.

The problem with Konqueror is that a "View Profile" combines both a configuration of Konqueror and the storeage of content to be displayed in it -- VERY BAD design. The nightmare will be fixed when these two functions are separated.

Yes, this sounds like a logical and reasonable idea. But, it is NOT. AJS is correct that we have this in Konqueror and it is a very bad design that nobody can/will fix because nobody seems to be able to come up with a design that others will support.

So, to avoid the same mistake with Dolphin. You do NOT want to include everything. I suggest that you start with a Dolphin configuration. This would include everything except for what is inside the frame.

So, what is not included in a "Profile"? Well with Dolphin, this is currently only the split screen function. But if it had tabs, they would also not be included.

Why do I say this? Because, you want to be able to change the Profile without changing the content currently being displayed. If you had a Profile that didn\'t have the screen split and you were displaying using the split screen, what will happen if you load it? Would it close one of the two URLs? That isn\'t good.

Dolphin doesn\'t yet have bookmarks, but we might discuss the other half of this any way. The other half is "View". A view is one or more saved URLS along with a schema to display them. With the current Dolphin this is one or two URLs and if two it would save which was left and which was right.

Two additional things to finish this:

A Profile can contain a *default* URL which would be displayed if it was opened when there wasn\'t already something being displayed.

A View can also point to a Profile which would be used when the content was displayed. Note that this is exactly the opposite of the View Profile in Konqueror where including the URL(s) is an option.

It also appears to me that this could be improved if it was possible for Profile to be automatically selected based on protocol and URL.

At the least, I think that Dolphin needs the ability to save the current view when you exit and restore it when you restart the application.

@James Tyrer
There are profiles and sessions, they work, you can save profiles without contents, for the user it's perfect.

@qwavel: not clear what you want to see. All your settings can be restored as defaults. I assume you don't want it to show the directory you last used?

@James Tyrer: adding folders to Places covers most bookmarking needs for file management

@The User: in Dolphin? Where? How?

@annew

When I exit the application I want it to remember my configuration (including directories, tabs, settings, etc.) so it can restore those setting when I next start the application.

I see this as a subset of the whole 'saved views' idea: this is automatically saving the current view.

@qwavel: well the settings part, assuming that you have regular needs, not wanting something different each time, is easy enough. View > Adjust View Properties lets you set your defaults. So it looks as though the missing bit from your PoV is the ability to open in the directory you last used, and to open tabs, each with the last directory you used. Is that what you are wanting to see?

annew wrote:@qwavel: well the settings part, assuming that you have regular needs, not wanting something different each time, is easy enough. View > Adjust View Properties lets you set your defaults. So it looks as though the missing bit from your PoV is the ability to open in the directory you last used, and to open tabs, each with the last directory you used. Is that what you are wanting to see?

Not really. Think about the firefox feature (available from the main tab in options) in which it will save all of your tabs and windows when you exit and then restore them when you restart.

Or consider screen size and position. For most applications, when you run the app it restores your last known screen size and pos.

qwavel wrote:
Not really. Think about the firefox feature (available from the main tab in options) in which it will save all of your tabs and windows when you exit and then restore them when you restart.

So how is that different from what I said?

Or consider screen size and position. For most applications, when you run the app it restores your last known screen size and pos.

That one can easily be done. Right-click on the title-bar of the window > Advanced > Special Window Settings, and set the Geometry and Position fields to Remember.

So it looks as though the missing bit from your PoV is the ability to open in the directory you last used, and to open tabs, each with the last directory you used. Is that what you are wanting to see?

* ability to open in the directory you last used
* open all previously opened tabs (each to the directory last used)
* remember split view settings for each tab
* remember view properties for each tab

Any chance this will ever get implemented?