9

Would it be too difficult to give Dolphin a history, like Konqueror had, like web browsers have, or like Windows Explorer has since 1995?
I have read proposals pointing to the same direction many times on blogs and forums, so I'm aware I'm not being original at all, but the truth is that clicking back arrow a dozen times to get to some folder we have visited before, and then clicking forward arrow 12 times more to come back to the last visited folder doesn't seem the best idea in terms of eficiency nor usability. Something like Konqueror's drop down history doesn't seem something too advanced nor difficult to implement, although I must recognize that I know nothing about writing software, so perhaps I'm wrong. Or perhaps is a feature that most users don't think is useful? I don't know. It seems such an elemental feature every file manager should have that I really would know what developers and other users think. Perhaps I'm missing some point and, in reality, a history for the file manager doesn't make as much sense as it seems to me, despite I can't think of any, to be honest.

Cheers.

KDE wish: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=157819

Rog131 wrote:KDE wish: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=157819

Thanks. I have seen the same feature request on several blogs and forums, and now in BKO, but it seems developers don't pay much attention to users' suggestions: the link you provided has no developers' answer nor comment on this demanded feature. A pity.
I'm new to this forum, I wonder if KDE devs come here from time to time and read us... :/

I do agree that such feature would come in handy now and then.
Not so much for actual navigation, more for comparing locations and refreshing ones memories about what one has done in the past...

For navigation this should not be required in my eyes. Since storing a location (and giving it a good name) is a thing of 2+ clicks this is the far better alternative to jump to locations in the file system (or beyond!) that you have to re-visit regularly. Interesting though that only very few people appear to actually use that feature. No idea why. To me it is a very natural way of navigating: you have your main locations you jump to, from there it typically is only one or two more clicks to where you actually want to navigate to. I prefer this, it feels more like "navigating forward" to where I want to go instead of having to dig in the past...

But as said: the feature might come in handy now and then. And one does not have to use it...

With «storing a location» you mean add folders to the Places panel, right? That is definitely a must for frequently visited directories, yes, breadcrumbs are also useful, but is limited, and probably that's why not many people uses it: if you end with your Places panel full of entries it will become even worse that navigating through the tree filesystem structure. Besides, I'm not so sure that most users could add more than some entries which pointed to folders that are just a couple of cliks away from where they want to go; many of us have many folders with easily, 6 or 7, 8... subfolders; but, over all, we probably find handier to click back than breaking our "thought flow" and make a "break" to think which entry in our Places panel is closer to the folder we have visited half an hour ago; I believe this might be the main reason: navigation should be like walk, something you can do without distracting your attention from the important. I prefer to click back or fordward 8 times, is faster and mechanical, I don't need to lose concentration in the "main" task. A webbrowser-like history would keep the "mechanicity" of the process but save cliks and time.

I suppose I should file a bug requesting that feature, but I'm rather unconfident with bug reporting: I have been having a look at the KDE bug report system these days -I had never reported a bug/request- and it seems that developers don't even read some of them: there are bugs and nice feature requests that date from 2005 and aren't still solved; and as I said before my idea isn't original at all, many people has proposed it many years before, and as we can see, without any success. I'n not confident at all that my request would be taken into account, and also I suspect it's better to talk directly with the developers, but neither I know if they use to visit this forum. I'm rather confused, to be honest.

I, personally don't see the point in this as I open multiple tabs and skip backwards and forwards between them depending on what I am doing. But that's only my opinion.

pooky2483 wrote:I, personally don't see the point in this as I open multiple tabs and skip backwards and forwards between them depending on what I am doing. But that's only my opinion.

O_o
Do you really think that way is clearer and quicker than a simple drop down menu, as we had in Konqueror or we have in LxQT's file manager, Pcman and almost all file managers made for the desktop in almost all operating systems? Of course if it's good for you -as you say, it's your opinion, and it's completely respectable- it' ok for users with similar file management habits, but I don't think that is a real alternative for many others, I'd dare to say that even for the majority: I think most people would end losing a lot of time clicking on each tab to look what folder is in it especially if some tabs were opened hours ago; but even worse: and at the end of the session, after 6, 8, 9, whatever hours, how many tabs do you end with, 86? Don't you end with an unbearable amount of tabs that make your Dolphin session a mess? I think I couldn't manage that very well.
Let me have a history like in Konqueror, and those who find dealing with tabs easier and more efficient, keep on using them, for both methods aren't incompatible: one can use history, tabs and both: have few tabs and use navigation history in each.
Thanks for your suggestion, though; using a couple or three tabs can be helpful for browsing, even if not the best way -in my opinion-.

eemantsal wrote:

pooky2483 wrote:I, personally don't see the point in this as I open multiple tabs and skip backwards and forwards between them depending on what I am doing. But that's only my opinion.

O_o
Do you really think that way is clearer and quicker than a simple drop down menu, as we had in Konqueror or we have in LxQT's file manager, Pcman and almost all file managers made for the desktop in almost all operating systems? Of course if it's good for you -as you say, it's your opinion, and it's completely respectable- it' ok for users with similar file management habits, but I don't think that is a real alternative for many others, I'd dare to say that even for the majority: I think most people would end losing a lot of time clicking on each tab to look what folder is in it especially if some tabs were opened hours ago; but even worse: and at the end of the session, after 6, 8, 9, whatever hours, how many tabs do you end with, 86? Don't you end with an unbearable amount of tabs that make your Dolphin session a mess? I think I couldn't manage that very well.
Let me have a history like in Konqueror, and those who find dealing with tabs easier and more efficient, keep on using them, for both methods aren't incompatible: one can use history, tabs and both: have few tabs and use navigation history in each.
Thanks for your suggestion, though; using a couple or three tabs can be helpful for browsing, even if not the best way -in my opinion-.

It's true, have many tabs open simultaneously is not a feasible option, at least for me, and I think many people feel the same, the back pop-up menu is a widespread practice among file browsers, I like test apps and I have used many file browsers: Nemo, Nautilus, Thunar, PCman, Marlin, Pantheon in LInux, and amost all of Windows 95 to up. All ones have a pop-up history. Very useful IMOO.

P.S.: English is not my native language, I'm sorry if I've had grammatical errors.

enrique_esteban wrote:It's true, have many tabs open simultaneously is not a feasible option, at least for me, and I think many people feel the same, the back pop-up menu is a widespread practice among file browsers, I like test apps and I have used many file browsers: Nemo, Nautilus, Thunar, PCman, Marlin, Pantheon in LInux, and amost all of Windows 95 to up. All ones have a pop-up history. Very useful IMOO.

Yes, it's in fact a normalized paradigm: everybody expects to be able to go back and forth, seen where they are going to, not only because all file manager work that way, but also web browsers. Can yo imagina Mozilla or Google, launching a new version with wouldn't have historial and users had to clic, clic, clic... clic until they reach that page they visited half an hour ago? The fun user would make of such browser would flood all the blogs, forums and social networks.
As I'm every day more convinced that developers don't come to this forum I'll file a bug, although as other commenters said, this feature has been requested many times before, I'm not sure if it servers for anything to file yet another more bug. :/

enrique_esteban wrote:P.S.: English is not my native language, I'm sorry if I've had grammatical errors.

Tranquilo, yo también soy hispano; y la mayoría de los usuarios de este foro tampoco son ingleses ni angloamericanos. Lo cierto es que si te fijas un poco, la mayoría escribimos inglés como el c*lo, ; así que no te preocupes, andamos todos más o menos igual, jeje. No creo que debas disculparte si intentas hacer lo mejor que puedes; y si a alguien le parece mal, que hable contigo en español, NTJ...

Un saludo.

My idea regarding this is slightly different. Dolphin should remember those folder where the user "stay" for a certain while, instead of remembering all the folders he traverses. Then create a special place called "recent folders" or "frequent folders" in the "Places" side bar where all this folders are listed in order of last visited or most frequently accessed.

Is there any update since this thread was started?

@simgunz: Why inventing a new concept when a working and accepted conecpt is out there and every user uses it already (Its save to say that every user has one of the named tools already in use somewhere. (i.e. at work) and knows the behaviour.

I find myself doing it again and again as I'm used to this behaviour from browsers like Firefox and Cromium.

The current menue that pops up when I right click has, for me(!), no value as I never made use of any of those functions. (Means: the defaults are pretty good)

I would propose that on a right click on the back/forward buttons
Either:
* The popup menu opens
** the menu is devided in 2 parts.
** the Top part holds the navigation stack. Where the top most entry is the folder that you would jump to if you click the button once.
** the lower part holds the content of the current menu

Or:
* The popup menu opens
** it holds the navigation stack. Where the top most entry is the folder that you would jump to if you click the button once.
** the content of the current menu is moved to a settings page or to the pop up menu of the main menu.

Add navigation history to forward/back buttons: https://phabricator.kde.org/D19311