KDE needs to find ways to expose the many different KIO Slaves and their usefulness to more users' eyes. How about this:
- separate the protocol part from the host/path in the various addressing fields/location bars.
- turn the protocol part into an (editable) drop down list of available items.
If we want it more fancy, we could just make it a little drop-down to the left of the address/location bar, and depending on the selection, it auto-fills 'http://', 'ftp://' or whatever into the lineedit field. And vice-versa: whatever you type in the line-edit as the protocol-part gets selected in the drop-down. This way users will become quickly aware of many more kio_slave options and start to play with them and also use them...
This could be used in Konqui's location bar as well as in File Open dialogs of various applications. Here's a quick'n'dirty mockup:
I can already hear the objections (as I heard them when I tried to discuss the idea at aKademy with some people):
- "This makes it more difficult -- users are used to type 'http://' or 'ftp://'..."
- "How do I then 'copy'n'paste' a complete URL from the address field?"
- "This looks too different from what I am used."
Users' old habits?
I do not think KDE users would have much difficulty to adapt to a little change here. After all, they adpated to tabbed browsing quite easily too, despite all the objections of people claiming that "Multi Document Interfaces" (MDI) were deprecated and not well liked by users....
Copy'n'Paste?
I am sure some KDE hackers will very quickly come up with a way to copy the complete URL correctly from the address field, even if the protocol part came from a drop down list....
Looks too different?
OK -- make it configurable then. Find an easy way to switch it back to the "old", traditional look'n'feel. Best, if you could switch it on and off directly inside the new location bar widget.
I recently saw Eric Laffoon supporting a similar idea in a discussion on the Dot. So maybe the suggestion finds a few more supporters, and even someone who can implement it.
It would for sure expose our KIO Slaves to much more users. Users using them strengthen KDE and Linux in many ways, turning them into much more confident ambassadors for our platform. Many of our KIO Slaves with their respective protocol handlers such as 'fish://', 'webdav://', 'vnc://', 'print:/', 'locate:/', 'info:/',
'man:/', 'fonts:/', 'camera:/', 'audiocd:/', 'settings:/' or 'trash:/' are still very much underrated und rarely used. Not because they are un-usable -- but because their existence and power is too little known. Anything that increases their visibility Is Good (TM).
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Instead of a drop down list
How about a button (?) that brings up a list of ioslaves and a bit of help about each one
e.g.
man:/ Displays the man (system help) pages
fish:// Usage fish://user@host - allows you to browse any remote machine that has ssh and perl installed.
Then if people know the syntax they don't have to do anything with the button but if they are trying something new they can get the list and see the basic syntax and what it does. It is also a lot less intrusive.
--
Scott
help:/kioslave !?
That's something I wondered about lately. The index tells the user nothing about what - the re-translation from german to english is i/o devices btw. - kioslaves are. Most of the individual help pages are imprecise, don't give a sample how to invoke a slave directly (which is e.g. broken in case of the thumbnail kioslave btw.). Also - if I didn't missed something - the help pages are not context sensitive accessible, but "only" via the help content.
A wizard : I think it's the better solution
I don't know where I've read the idea but why not that layout:
|| (/) (->) (http://foo.bar.org/ |v)
So, explanations:
- || : the toolbar handle
- (/) : a WIZARD icon
- (->) : the actuel erase icon
- (... |v) : the address bar
Then, the wizard icon would popup a... wizard dialog:
It should provides a list of all protocols, with "comprehensive names" when possible. Such as "Audio CD contents" instead of "audiocd:/", or perhapse a two columns with icon+protocol and short description.
Eventually show only most popular protocols, with a (More protocols) button that will show all protocols and remember if it was pressed between two launches of the dialog.
Then, clicking (Next) would show a personalized page for the selected protocol.
For example, ftp would propose server, user, path... as fields ; audiocd would finish immedialty, floppy would ask the floppy disk...
When (Finish) clicked, the address bar will have the contents generated from the dialog and load it.
I find it the most suitable solution since it would solve a lot of solutions:
- It's VISIBLE for the users, and user-friendly
- Users LEARN the resulting URL and, little by little, will type the URL instead of openning the dialog.
- It doesn't change the usability of the address bar and don't add other isues than eating 22*22 pixels on screen
yay!
I'm not the only one that had the idea crossing his mind. I thought of an icon helper too, so an (optional) icon could represent protocols. Now ... I don't mean fish-> a cod-fish icon. Something more representative of what the protocol does.
It may be not easy to explain a person with low-level knowledge of pc usage what fish:// implies (even worse trying to explain what ssh is!). Instead if someone could figure out a graphical way to represent those protocols (secure remote connection to machine) that would help a lot
Also, as suggested by argonel, it can be confusing to implement it in such a way, even if it could look obvious for us using kde daily. How about a sidebar or html page in konqui representing each "mode"?
For example, switch to fish:// and the sidebar shows with some nice graphic what you're about to do, and short described instructions. Similar to windows searches in the sidebar. Those dialogs should be quick enough not to annoy advanced users but easy enough to be understood by newbies.
Just my 0.02€
Surprising behaviour
Changing such a combo box would appear to be changing the protocol with which the already displayed URL should be interpreted, and that is not what is intended. For instance "man://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/696" is meaningless.
Some sort of a front end would be more appropriate, be it a helpful lizard or a little static web form. "about:kio" or another tab on "about:konqueror"
Surprising behaviour
Of course, there shouldn't be any surprising behaviour. A working implementation should take care of that. By switching from a complete http-URL to a man:/-page, you should get an empty location field (and switching back to http:// should bring back the last entry from a cached list, so you don't loose anything you typed by accidentally switching the protocol handler once).
Do you agree we should try to give kio_slaves more exposure to all KDE users? Do you have other ideas how we could do that?.
I certainly agree that exposi
I certainly agree that exposing the kioslaves is important. The little control next to the URL control might be a little too obscure for casual users, irritating for the rest of us.
Perhaps the point is to be a little irritating, so as to get attention. Definately a tip of the day, and some mention in about:konqueror. Maybe a default kicker button?
naaah
I think there should be more than the almost-never-read startuptips and about: screen(s). no, it should be cleverly build-in in the interface.