Hi, first of all I must warn everyone that I haven't checked the KDE source code, so it's quite possible that my assumptions are wrong. Oh, and English is not my first language, so please bear with me.

I'm on a personal quest to get bug 189081 squashed (it's affecting a convert friend from Gnome ). But this is not the only problem with folder view, as there are some more inconsistencies to be found between this plasmoid and Dolphin and Konqueror. This lead me to believe that they somehow don't share the same code even when they do the same work. Is that true? And if yes, why?

One of the things I love about KDE is how modular it is. I mean, in KDE applications seem to try to reuse a lot of functionality instead of reinventing the wheel, like digiKam using Marble or Dolphin using Phonon to play videos inside the information pane. Then, why the icons on a folder view desktop doesn't show the +/- selection icons that Dolphin and Konqueror use? Why in 4.2 you could paste the clipboard contents on folder view but not on Dolphin (I know it's implemented in 4.3)? Why KDiff3Plugin only works on Konqueror but not Dolphin given that Konqueror uses Dolphin internally for file browsing?

This is not a rant, I'm really curious. I seem to have read something about background rendering as one of the reasons because Dolphin can't be used on folder view but I couldn't find any definite response. Can someone shed light on this?

I think it's important not only to avoid reimplementing the same functionality but because of consistency. How can you explain to an user that he can rename files with a modal dialog in Dolphin but must do it inline on his desktop? Why he can push control while dragging from Konqueror to copy a file but he can't if dragging it from his (folder view) desktop? It's not very intuitive...

What do you think? Oh, and thank you very much for reading this far.

Plasma is based on QGraphicsView while Dolphin, etc are based on QWidget. Therefore they are incompatible, preventing use of the Dolphin view in Plasma.

The problem is likely related to item position tracking.
The reason Dolphin can't use the KDiff view is because the KDiff view is based on Konqueror plugins. Dolphin does not support such plugins I believe.

Thanks for your reply!

So it's just an unfortunate technical restriction. I think this is the only case where it would be better that the widgets on the desktop and applications behaved exactly the same because the user is accustomed to the particular behaviour of Dolphin and every file open/save dialog. It's a pity that the way they are now they can get out of sync so easily (and you have to duplicate the code for folder view).

Well, thank you for the explanation and keep up the good work. You guys rock!

bcooksley wrote:Plasma is based on QGraphicsView�� while Dolphin, etc are based on QWidget.

Er, I have another question. I know only a little of Qt, but wouldn't 'Widgets on Canvas' allow QGraphicsView to use Dolphin's QWidget?

Naproxeno wrote:

bcooksley wrote:Plasma is based on QGraphicsView�� while Dolphin, etc are based on QWidget.

Er, I have another question. I know only a little of Qt, but wouldn't 'Widgets on Canvas' allow QGraphicsView to use Dolphin's QWidget?

Quite possibly (one can use the Konsole KPart, for example) - I'm not sure if anyone's ever tried, though

GeneralZod wrote:

Naproxeno wrote:

bcooksley wrote:Plasma is based on QGraphicsView�� while Dolphin, etc are based on QWidget.

Er, I have another question. I know only a little of Qt, but wouldn't 'Widgets on Canvas' allow QGraphicsView to use Dolphin's QWidget?

Quite possibly (one can use the Konsole KPart, for example) - I'm not sure if anyone's ever tried, though

What should I do to encourage someone to try it? This is too technical for Brainstorm, I think.

You could ask on the Plasma mailing list, but nothing will likely be tried until KDE 4.3 has been finished and released.

bcooksley wrote:You could ask on the Plasma mailing list, but nothing will likely be tried until KDE 4.3 has been finished and released.

Ok, I understand, it's feature freeze time. I'll give it a try later then.

Thanks for your help!