I am using Pangolin and have so far encountered no problems with the shell or plasma - touch wood.

But I am curious about how the Folder View is supposed to work.
I have one desktop with all my working files, so I dragged a Folder View widget onto the desktop changed it to the files I want to have displayed and bingo, when I go to that desktop I can immediately open any of the files.

However - there is always a snake in the grass, isn't there - the Folder View disappears it seems when I log out and on re-opening it tells me that that particular folder is not found, despite the fact that Dolphin shows the files to be mounted (/media/worx) and I can access them from there.
Does the widget pre-empt the Dolphin application?

Is there any way to keep them permanent, like the applications on the other desktops?

Finally, why is there no way to right-click a folder and get a 'send to' and drop-down selection?

Hello bodewig!

Which KDE version are you using? I encoureage you to install 4.8.1 or at least 4.8.0 if that's not the case already.

"the Folder View disappears it seems when I log out"

what exactly do you mean? Do you clearly see the widget being removed from the desktop? What *exactly* do you observe?

"Dolphin shows the files to be mounted (/media/worx)"

Are you are using a removable device or a network storage?

"Is there any way to keep them permanent, like the applications on the other desktops?"

Once a widget is added to the desktop, it stays there, that's by design. IF you see a widget being removed by Plasma for no reason, that's a bug. Which containment are you using? Desktop, Fodlder View or something else?

"Finally, why is there no way to right-click a folder and get a 'send to' and drop-down selection?"

Please, report this to bugs.kde.org, product "plasma", component "widget-folderview", severity "wishlist". In general, I think this is planned in the future versions. Still, do report on bugs.kde.org for it not to get lost.

Thank you for reporting the issues!

Hello isemenov
yes I am using 4.8.0

I added a Folder View widget to the desktop and yes the widget itself stays there but the folder to which it is supposed to point is not shown anymore after I logged out; instead the widget says that the folder (/media/worx) is not available this despite the fact that Dolphin shows those folders and that the 'Folder View Settings' under 'Specify folder' still shows the correct entry.
I can get them back by resetting this folder location in the widget and re-instating it.

These folders are located on the same HDD as the / and /home files.

Hope this makes sense.

I can only assume that the widget looks at the location before it is loaded by the os itself

Is the folder representing some sort of mounted media? This bug is very similar to this bug

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=210480

That depends as I said on the sequence of mounting the various partitions.
Root (/), /Home are all primary partitions while /media/worx is located on an extended partition but on the same hdd.

If the widget looks at the location /media/worx before it is mounted through the system it will not see it and say that the folder is not available.

And yes, the location should be automatically refreshed and I would not consider that a wish but something that should be standard.

Aha, in this case, it is 210480. I will get there soon.

As an attempt at a workaround, if you go into the Folderview settings then hit Ok, is the folder then displayed?

Hello bcooksley,

the answer is 'No'.

And it definitely has something to do with how the widget accesses the folders.
If I put a copy of the folder into my /home file it is immediately displayed.
The second folder, still on /media/worx, has to be removed from the widget and reinstated to display.

Since I do not know how to program the widget for a shortcut I cannot try the following, temporary, work-around.
1. Place a 'dummy' folder in the /home file
2. The dummy folder has a link into the /media/worx file where the folder is located.

But perhaps the easiest (?) would be to place a delay into the execution of the script, sort a la javascript and DOM, and wait for everything to be loaded before linking the widget to the folder.

Having said all that I must admit that it is not a serious issue, annoying yes but not serious.
And Pangolin and KDE 4.8.0 seem to work very nicely and stable together.

If you open Konsole, then run the following command, does it show the Folderview properly? (This will restart Plasma Desktop)

Code: Select all

kquitapp plasma-desktop && sleep 10s && plasma-desktop &> /dev/null

Hello bcooksley
and apologies for the tardy reply

No.

Response:
kquitapp(10173): "Application plasma-desktop could not be found using service org.kde.plasma-desktop and path /MainApplication."

Hi bcooksley

just of something. I am not using the desktop but a laptop

thus probably org.kde.plasma-netbook

ran kquitapp plasma-netbook && sleep 10s && plasma-netbook &> /dev/null

and got reply

kquitapp(11583): "Application plasma-netbook could not be found using service org.kde.plasma-netbook and path /MainApplication."

Latest in the saga

since kquitapp plasma-desktop && sleep 10s && plasma-desktop &> /dev/null

did not find the folder I upgraded kde-netbook via the package manager

and lo and behold, miracles have not ceased to exist,

kquitapp plasma-netbook && sleep 10s && plasma-netbook &> /dev/null
worked and the missing files inside the folder view appeared.

Did they stay? No, when switched off the /media/worx file still can not be found.

Ok, it seems that the Folder View does not monitor the location it is pointed to in the event of it not existing - and restarting Plasma once the location exists will cause it to show properly.

Unfortunately this will require changes to KDE code to correct. All I can recommend at this time is altering your system startup so the folder is mounted sooner (at least before KDE starts in any case) or restarting Plasma using the above mentioned method on each startup.

I do not think that the desktop is at fault; it feels stable enough.

The widget "Folder View" for instance has a selector "Places" but only accepts those on / and /home and the other partition on that hdd, everything else, for instance the second internal hdd and the external drives, can be selected but are not shown on the desktop.

The delay works fine but then it is just as easy to go to the settings of the widget, remove the location, paste it back and go.

I also noticed that when you reduce the delay for instance to 1 sec, the solution does not work. But after that the 10 sec delay does not work either and you have to reboot the whole system.