KDE-Forum.org

I tried linux since the days on de linux 0.99 kernel. And when in 1996 the KDE development started I was very interested in what this could bring for the linux desktop. At this moment the KDE offers a real desktop, but after all these years simple things like keyboard handling are far from perfect!

Let's take the konquerer file manager als an example. The selection I make with the arrow up and down keys in de tree isn't automaticly sync'ed with the part that shows the contents of a folder. You have to press enter in order to show the contents of the folder according to your tree selection. This is very irritating.
Furthermore when keeping the arrrow up or down pressed the selection disappears form the tree until the first of last element is reached or the key is no longer pressed?!?

Why did KDE not make a tree that WORKS, just like in Windows. With no disappearing selections and automatisch showing of the folder contents after a short time after making the selection with the keybaord.

Another thing that I really hate is the keyboard handling in de part on konquerer that shows the folder contents, the list view control. If I use SHIFT in combination with the arrow up and down the last item that has the dotted box around it, is not included in the extented selection. Why not make the keyboard selection not the same as the "extended-selection list" like the file explorer in windows.

And there are more things that make the keyboard handling in KDE far from perfect. Let's take the menu bar. If I press ALT-L in konquerer (for the Location menu) it could be that not always the first menu item within the sub menu (New Window) is selected but another menu item because the mouse cursor was positioned on that position. Since I did't use the mouse to open the sub menu, I don't want my mouse cursor position to change the selected item. This is very irritation and even GTK/Gnome handled this correctly.

All these things I mentioned (and a few more) keep me from making Linux my main OS for both my desktop and laptop computer. And yes, I tried Gnome. And while the are certainly things that I like more about gnome, but I really hate how it's eats away screen geometry by using huge toolbar icons and to much spacing (but I love it's beagle desktop search ).

I wonder if (some) of the keyboard issues I described will be fixed in de new QT 4.0 (maybe the menu bar problem) or KDE 3.5. Or perhaps that someone created some source-code patches that solves the problems I described?

I know about at least one bug #45556 about the keyboard handling in the list view control. And just like some people in the bug comments, I get the feeling that nobody is interested in fixing this bug, since it's a reported bug since KDE 3.0.6.

Other stuff like the tree synchronisation and the faulty menubar keyboard handling has been in the KDE for quite a while (if not forever). So I wonder, doesn't any one use the keyboard in de KDE or does nobody care to fix these problems?!?

I didn't create this thread just to complain about the KDE. I'm just searching for a solution and trying to find out why these keyboard issues are (still) not fixed (like bug #45556).

But besides complaining about it, I will search the bug database for my keyboard handling issues. And if the bug does not exist, I will report a new one. And hopefully these irritating keyboard handling problems will finally be adressed for KDE 3.5

Quoted

That menu thing is weird, it works for me.
All by keyboard I choose Document->save as in Konqueror, then cancel the dialog using ESC.
When pressing ALT-D it highlights the first entry in the Document menu, not save as.

I found a bug report about the menu bug, it appears to be a bug in qt that can be fixed with one of the qt-copy patches. See bug #106816 for more info. Hopefully this issue is adressed in qt 4? But since I'm using Gentoo Linux I think rebuilding qt including the patch should be a good way to fix the menu problem.