Hi all.

I'm a long time KDE user since 2.something ...

I think KDE 4 was a great step forward except some rubbish feature like activities and akonadi.

Now I write to tell that in my opinion things like Baloo indexer is the right way to loose the last few users kde keep.

Upgraded KDE and noticed HD spinning... and working and working and working and working ......

So I noticed the new Baloo process. The only solution I found was to create a FAKE bin like suggested here.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/437635/h ... n-kde-4-13

ByeBYE

ftaioli wrote:Upgraded KDE and noticed HD spinning... and working and working and working and working ......

So I noticed the new Baloo process. The only solution I found was to create a FAKE bin like suggested here.

How much data you have (in gigabytes)?
What kind data you have (lots of small/lots of large files)?
How long did you wait scanning to have gone trough?
Did you even consider about letting scanning to go trough?

I have not needed user home wide search function in any other system than spotlight in OS X, what just works.
I wanted to use nepomuk but it just throws irrelevant data most of the time.

KRunner is great, it works very well when it only filters applications and resently used files. I don't use it to launch websites or go trough bookmarks, play music or definetely not to open or search my emails.

Thats why I want I have own dedicated applications for the content and data and they are good in it. KMail for emails, digiKam for photos, Chromium for webpages, Amarok for music and Dolphin for videos and other files.

If I throw file somewhere without organizing it myself, then it is temporal data what can be deleted later on.
I have my home directory as dumping ground, at the end of the month I select all than my own specific directories at home directory and I delete them (to trashcan).
Then those files exist there for one month more and get automatically deleted.

But, I really wish I would have spotlight on KDE. I don't want to rate any files via Dolphin. I don't want to add tags or try to remember tags or sources. I want to keep things simple and clean.
I have terabytes worth of data, from small files (few megabytes, not source code) to large files (gigabytes).
I have lots of bookmarks, lots of emails and small amount of music (couple dozen disks).

For me the Baloo was fast, it quickly indexed my home directory (I keep it very small, just 10GiB) what toke barely few seconds.
But I do dislike that Baloo doesn't offer me any control, it doesn't respect MY PRIVACY. With that I mean, I want to tell it specifically what directories it can index, otherwise by default it shouldn't index anything.

I don't want corporations to track my payment history with bonus cards, I don't want corporations to try get me join their facebook/google+ page (or in those services) as long I can not definetely control who can see and what.
Less I want my computer to keep track of my files, suggest what I should open or where to save.
It is like I wouldn't have a multi-user capable operating system running every software.

The most important feature what I use in Dolphin is its filtering (Ctrl+i) as it does exactly what I want, it filters the directory where I am based what I type. I never liked find program, but I can very well understand its need when you are using someone else computer or multi-user environment in corporation searching specific ways unknown data.

Fri13 wrote:Thats why I want I have own dedicated applications for the content and data and they are good in it. KMail for emails, digiKam for photos, Chromium for webpages, Amarok for music and Dolphin for videos and other files.

Ironically, that's what Baloo does - each bit (email, files, tags) is handled in a different and specific way.

But I do dislike that Baloo doesn't offer me any control, it doesn't respect MY PRIVACY. With that I mean, I want to tell it specifically what directories it can index, otherwise by default it shouldn't index anything.

There's an alternative KCM (https://gitorious.org/baloo-kcmadv) which does exactly what you want. As for indexing enabled / disabled, this is up to the distros to decide IMO.

4.13.1 has an on/off switch, too.

einar wrote:Ironically, that's what Baloo does - each bit (email, files, tags) is handled in a different and specific way.

Everything is done trough single service. Not by multiple dedicated standalone applications what has nothing to do with each other. Meaning if you want to find a photo, you can't use same service/application to find it as you do to find a song. Just like Amarok and digiKam are two separate dedicated software instead combination.
Meaning, each application can do their own search or filter system independently without needing a single service to do it for them. Of course it is nice when someone does good library for it what every other can use, but a global search needs to be so well done in the first place that it is then in use everywhere and does give results what specifically is user searching and avoids irrelevant data. Combine the global search with a activities and it becomes a monster problem for normal user. Nice idea but just doesn't work. Why I personally would have renamed whole "Activities" to "Projects" and allow user to start new project, tie applications and files to that and then handle that project as individual virtual desktop.

There's an alternative KCM (https://gitorious.org/baloo-kcmadv) which does exactly what you want. As for indexing enabled / disabled, this is up to the distros to decide IMO.

4.13.1 has an on/off switch, too.

I have used that adv variant because it was required to get some order to that. Alone the requirement to get a third party (or additional tool) to configure something like that is a problem. It is just as a problem as not all users want to get everything found as listed somewhere suddenly, what is as well reason why some people don't like OS X Spotlight.

There is some logical problems with the desktop environments. As everyone tries to bring all applications to single instance. Decades ago we were totally in situation where a software needed to do everything itself. So user started the software by typing its program name to shell and used its features. When windowing environment got popular, it was that each application had (typically) a single window and everything it could do was done from that window (not to touch multi-window behavior now).
And now we are where the single software should have all, was it a desktop or web browser. And again people need same separation as we did have decades ago, where different tasks were done in different software. As it is familiar to everyone, when you need a fork you use a fork. When you need a hammer, then you get the hammer. But idea that we have fork what works too as hammer is just terrible, as quickly we have tool what works as fork, hammer, saw, knife, toothbrush and takes our kids to school too.

As example from Android, it is fancy idea that Google Search widget allows user to search trough all local data (installed apps, taken photos, stored music etc) but as well do online search (sending query to Google and search trough different services etc). But I don't even want to use it to search a contact number only locally stored because it sends it to Google. I don't want to see photos where the contact is or find out that I have song what has its name in it. So it is easier to me launch a phonebook and type there the search, requiring only a single tap more (contacts > search).

And there are just lots of people who knows already a lot what is around their computers and when they need help to find something from sub-directory or similar, then the search needs to be very much focused to that specific thing they are trying to accomplish.

There is this dream what many have from global searches, what is from movies and TV-series. That a person walks on computer, types a search query and suddenly all photos, videos, maps and other data pops-up on screen nicely scattered.
And that might be one idea behind KDE Activities. But when it is considered deeply, it is exactly same thing as files (directory is as well just a special file), so the original idea in Unix "Everything is a file" is still the best and most effective. Open a directory where are all the data about subject and that't it. And it works best for many after learning to use it.
Meaning, when doing a larger project, it is better to have all files in single directory instead scattered around to multiple directories. Like a presentation what has photos, video, music and text. Better when all image, video and sound files are in directory named by presentation name, than having all the files scattered to ~/Music, ~/Pictures, ~/Documents and ~/Video combined with Activities to single activity.
And if you need same file in different project, just copy it. Thats why soft/hard links existed. It is easy as pie to manage large data in the basic manner.

And thats why it is difficult to use KDE in powerful way when it doesn't support hard/soft links separation and it wants to push every file what is saved to ~/Documents by default.