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[Dolphin'] Warn user, when he left home directory

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Lachu
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I seen user get disappointed many times, when leaving home directory. He asked: "Why I cannot change anything here and what's that's is?". Rationale for idea is simple: Normal user should never have access to something not inside ones home or network resource. We can hide everything not inside home, but better is educate.

Idea is to show simple message, like: "You are currently on system location, so you can change anything here and there's no reason to do that".

Simple message above file list.


Lachu, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Nov.
airdrik
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So you want there to be some indication that the user is browsing a directory outside of /home/<username>?

Perhaps there could be something in the status bar or one of those warning messages indicating that they are in a directory they don't own or don't have permissions to edit?


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Lachu
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airdrik wrote:So you want there to be some indication that the user is browsing a directory outside of /home/<username>?

Perhaps there could be something in the status bar or one of those warning messages indicating that they are in a directory they don't own or don't have permissions to edit?


Not only permission to edit, but also they shouldn't edit at all (of course, if she/he doesn't know what he doing). Users many times travel to root and asks me why directory names are in English and why he doesn't understood file structure. If we clarify, root is part of system, user doesn't get frustrated anymore.


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airdrik
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Well I think basing the warning on their having edit permission to the directory would cover that use case - anything outside their home folder they wouldn't have permissions to and so they would see the warning.
Basing it off of permissions is more flexible than basing it off of their home folder as it accommodates cases where they have access to other directories outside of their home folder like shared network drives (mounted at /mnt or accessed via KIO URIs) or shared local folders (set up in e.g. /public or /home/public or some such). They may usually access these directories via links in their home folders, but they also shouldn't see the warning if they go straight to the targets.

I see two problems with trying to define directories that "they shouldn't edit at all" (aside from a permissions-based approach). First, the system can't (reliably) distinguish between a novice (who doesn't know what he/she is doing) and a system admin or power user poking around using their normal user account. Second you can't just define a set of directories that only the system itself should be touching as that will vary by distribution with some distros using radically different folder structures (Gobo Linux being one I know off the top of my head, but there are a few others that abandon or set aside the LSB hierarchy). You end up defining the set of directories as either everything that isn't their home folder or everything that they don't have permissions to.


airdrik, proud to be a member of KDE forums since 2008-Dec.


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