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Folder View Plasmoid Improvement


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November 25th 2010 : First run

I come here to submit a new idea, It will transform the existing folder view plasmoid in a swiss knife (with many features). Here's the detail :


1) Base of navigation enabling

First of all, it would be very cool if the navigation was enabled, here's a screenshot



A toolbar can be added at the top of the plasmoid, with path of the current directory contained in command buttons(as in Dolphin), you can click on these buttons to go to upper folders. There are three other buttons which are "Previous", "Next" and "Return to _source_"

Return to _Source_ button

You can configure the plasmoid to display one folder (your home directory for instance), the "source folder" is the folder you ask the plasmoid to display by default (here your home directory) and clicking to this buttons will bring you back to the "source" directory


2) Terminal Inclusion

A "open terminal here" option can be implemented, after that, user would be able to open a terminal just by pressing F4, here's a drawing



Of course the terminal directory will be updated as you browse files (exactly as in Dolphin), it is very useful


3) Media Managing

The folder view plasmoid can be used to browse removable medias (in the configuration window, you can check "view medias" :



Then you'll be able to access your removable media directly

Mount Point Option : I think it would be pretty good that the plasmoid read the /etc/fstab file to create shortcut to other mountpoint. It allows user browse folder directly from mount point (useful when an hard disk is splited in several partitions I think.

Nota :

-This option must be configurable (display all mount point or not, or just display mountpoints you want)

-I think that a "remove media" option could be great

3) BookMarks Integration

The folder view plasmoid can be used to access bookmarks instantly :



the plasmoid can be splited in several parts such as network, local bookmarks, website bookmark and why not "Network Connection", you would be able to change your internet connecion in one click and access to your favourite places fastly


Of course, all these improvment can be configured to define the plasmoid functions



To think

-Network Connection function
-Tab bar to switch plasmoid function (maybe ?)

don't hesitate to contact me to improve the concept


David.

In other words you want to turn folder view into a full-featured file manager like Dolphin? That is not what plasma widgets are for, they are supposed to be simple, focused tools. We don't need to turn the file view widget into dolphin because we already have dolphin.

First, each of the numbers are separate ideas. Please submit them separately.

That being said, I don't think many of your suggestions are good ones.

#1 is basically the same as quickaccess, Someone would just need to modify quickaccess so it can work on the desktop. However, since quickaccess is a third-party widget, it is not appropriate for the brainstorm forum.

#2 Why would we want to have an integrated terminal when we can just have a separate terminal widget? For applications that makes sense because of stacking and focus issues, but for plasma which is only one layer it doesn't. This idea would be rejected as pre-existing, we already have a third-party terminal widget called plasmacon.

#3 Never, ever, ever going to happen. They are not going to make another half dozen config option just for this. And why would they? We already have device manager widget, and other people can implement their own device manager widgets with different features (in fact several people have already done that). That is one of the advantages of plasma, we can have a large number of simple, specialized tools rather than having to integrate everything into one big tool.

If someone were to implement a devices kio slave, as others have suggested, the folderview widget would get this for free. If they did it your way, it also means that other applications, like Dolphin and konqueror, would not be able to take advantage of this capability. And it would likely drastically increase the size of the folderview code, hurting performance.

But a dedicated device manager widget allows for a much more focused set of features over a kio slave. If you want an icon-mode device manager, I suggest making a separate idea for a widget like that. A request to implement this in folderview specifically will be marked as wontfix.

If this is ever going to happen, it is either going to be a dedicated widget, or a device manager kio slave. It is not going to be a specialized mode integrated into just the file manager widget.

#4 See previous, this would have to be either a kio slave or a separate widget. However, we already have widget that can do any of these, so the latter would be marked as pre-existing.

"Network Connection function" We already have a Network kio slave, so this is already possible. This would be marked as pre-existing.

"Tab bar to switch plasmoid function" Once again, not going to happen, and I think there is already a brainstorm idea about this anyway. Whatever the case, I think grouping desktop containment in 4.6 allows for tabbing widgets, or at least that is planned, so this would be marked as pre-existing.

So really the only ideas that would be acceptable are:

A device manager widget that lets you browse devices

A bookmarks kio slave.

Understood, you just want dedicated plasmoid for each concept, understood, I finally found the device and network manager.

let's read us again for a new post

david.