I've recently been getting accustomed to KDE 4 (4.1) and it is really beautiful. However when I introduce it to my friends, the first roadblock they hit is: "Where is My Computer?" and "How do I get to the partition where the Movies are?"
A lot of new people are trying Linux and coming from Windows world, they expect to see all their partition in one-easy-to-reach location in the form of an icon on the Desktop. They don't want "folder view" or to open Dolphin (most of them don't even know what they are and where they are) to get to their data. For advanced users, sure folder view may be awesome but for normal people its...strange! To them its like an "un-minimizable window" (direct quote)
Gnome has the option to place a computer icon on the Desktop where mounted partitions appear. KDE 3 had a "Storage Media" icon in the taskbar. I wish/hope/suggest we have something simple like this for KDE 4. The experienced users can use what-ever they feel comfortable with and the new users will be happy to see their workflow un-interrupted (because "My Computer" is usually the first thing clicked after the desktop logs in)
I feel its something not that difficult to implement and yet would give a HUGE usability boost to KDE for both new and existing users. What are your thoughts?

Perhaps just implementing a places:/ KIO slave then ( if not already showing them ) adding internal hard drive partitions to the Dolphin places menu.

In the meantime, you might be interested in the bookmarks:/ KIO slave, it shows Places ( along with their bookmarks if they use Konqueror ), however it looks more like a webpage.

sbjaved wrote:I've recently been getting accustomed to KDE 4 (4.1) and it is really beautiful. However when I introduce it to my friends, the first roadblock they hit is: "Where is My Computer?" and "How do I get to the partition where the Movies are?"

If that's the only roadblock, wouldn't it suffice to add links to the places panel to whatever devices are present on the computer in question, and maybe adding an icon to the desktop that launches dolphin if clicked upon?

Kryten2X4B wrote:

sbjaved wrote:I've recently been getting accustomed to KDE 4 (4.1) and it is really beautiful. However when I introduce it to my friends, the first roadblock they hit is: "Where is My Computer?" and "How do I get to the partition where the Movies are?"

If that's the only roadblock, wouldn't it suffice to add links to the places panel to whatever devices are present on the computer in question, and maybe adding an icon to the desktop that launches dolphin if clicked upon?

I've already done that. But you've missed the point. I shouldn't have to do it at all. My idea is a suggestion to make newer users feel more comfortable with KDE 4. Just think about it, would a newbie look under /media to find his partitions?

Looking at "Places" within Dolphin, I only see "Volume (ext3)". That indeed wouldn't help any newbie, especially because it's still in English. If there would be the possibility to rename this one and if there would be the size of the partition it would be much better.
The question where to put icons is probably for the distributions, wouldn't it?

Places use the partition label for the name. For example, consider the following Lancelot screenshot:

the only partition that has 'Volume' is the /home for which I haven't set the label.

For newbies everything is confusing in new OS. Even that there would be some strange "My Computer" icon on the desktop, there won't be drives as they know it from Windows, like c:, d:,... and they'll start complain again.
This is not windows and nobody should expect the same behaviour.
Many people use linux because it is different than Windows. For sure for others it could be confusing but they can set KDE to behave as they wish. This is freedom you don't have in windows.

I think that by default KDE should not look like Windows. Distro maker can still decide what will be the default look. E.g. in Kubuntu there is some "My Computer" icon in Kicker in KDE3 which I have never seen in my Gentoo

BTW: I have never used "My Computer" I always used Total Commander in Windows. Should I start complain?

KejPi wrote:For newbies everything is confusing in new OS. Even that there would be some strange "My Computer" icon on the desktop, there won't be drives as they know it from Windows, like c:, d:,... and they'll start complain again.
This is not windows and nobody should expect the same behaviour.
Many people use linux because it is different than Windows. For sure for others it could be confusing but they can set KDE to behave as they wish. This is freedom you don't have in windows.

I think that by default KDE should not look like Windows. Distro maker can still decide what will be the default look. E.g. in Kubuntu there is some "My Computer" icon in Kicker in KDE3 which I have never seen in my Gentoo

BTW: I have never used "My Computer" I always used Total Commander in Windows. Should I start complain?

Nobody's complaining. We all love KDE
This is just a suggestion to make KDE more friendly for newer users.
You are right about the fact that people use linux because it is different than Windows (no more viruses...yay!) but if they can't find their stuff then linux isn't much use, is it? Adopting an established and familiar solution would increase KDE's appeal for newer users and make it more popular (something we all want to see?) But i agree that maybe its a decision for distros to make it prominently available or not.

Seems like in KDE 3.x there was a KIO slave system:/ that gave you something roughly equivalent to "my computer", some distros like Mepis (if memory serves) had this icon.

It doesn't seem to have made it into KDE 4, unfortunately. I can't find an analogous kio-slave.

SUSE also had the system KIO slave from memory. they also have a sysinfo KIO slave as well ( it is available for KDE 4 though )

Yes... a refined form of what was present in KDE 3 would be great. I like what SUSE does too but its more like a "General Computer info" page, not a place to access your partitions. I hope more distros think about this basic stuff. I don't properly know what a KIO slave is (is that a background process?) but if there was one before, it can be done again (i hope). Would it be a good idea to start Dolphin with a page which lists all partitions (with proper Labels..not hda4) in a similar fashion to My Computer in Windows.

And what is with sysinfo:/. http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KIO+Slave+sysinfo:+?content=58704. This My Computer thing already exists.

AFAICT it's not part of the main kde, though. I'm running 4.2 beta3 on Intrepid, and there's no sysinfo:/ kio slave. Would be a nice addition, I think.

Also, is there actually supposed to be a "places:/" kio slave? It doesn't work here.

No, the places:/ KIO slave was just an idea... to replace the media:/ KIO slave from KDE 3.

KejPi wrote:For newbies everything is confusing in new OS. Even that there would be some strange "My Computer" icon on the desktop, there won't be drives as they know it from Windows, like c:, d:,... and they'll start complain again.
This is not windows and nobody should expect the same behaviour.
Many people use linux because it is different than Windows. For sure for others it could be confusing but they can set KDE to behave as they wish. This is freedom you don't have in windows.

I think that by default KDE should not look like Windows. Distro maker can still decide what will be the default look. E.g. in Kubuntu there is some "My Computer" icon in Kicker in KDE3 which I have never seen in my Gentoo

BTW: I have never used "My Computer" I always used Total Commander in Windows. Should I start complain?

indeed...

now, may I suggest they set dolphin to always start up in maximized mode setup like this:


Imho, this is file management made easy, I can get to any point on my system in mere seconds. And now that you can click on that icon next to the url and get a list of bookmarked locations I don't even need tree view anymore. Which is good, cause I find the horizontal auto scrolling future in dolphin _VERY_ annoying.