KDE-Forum.org

I have seen your bug report. I'm unsure whether I should put my comments there or here. Anyway, I decided to put them here.

Like what I said in another post, this actually might be something that the distributor (or in your case, PC-BSD) needs to address. I'm not sure how BSD "packages" things, but in most Linux distributions, the "default" looks is pretty much up to the distribution's developers. Kubuntu's default Konqueror look is definitely not like that. The Location toolbar is only one one line, from the action buttons to the URL/Location bar.

As for your mockup, there's one problem I could see, and that's regarding the location of the New Tab button. It's placement is quite unnatural and inconsistent with most tabbed UI's. Besides, placing it apart from the tabs doesn't really address any vertical space issues. I do agree, though, that having close buttons at the right edge of each tab (instead of the left) would be nice, ala Opera.

Anyway, it might be a bit too late for any "big" change to happen for Konqueror (assuming that this is really how the default Konqueror looks like). KDE 4 is on the way, and it will usher in new concepts, specially with regards to more HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) compliant looks.

Last I checked, Firefox doesn't even have a "new tab" button by default (at least in the 1.5 series). And Opera has its new tab button on the same level as the tabs themselves (of course, Opera's location toolbar is located below the tabs.

As for the loading icon, true it requires programming. I don't think it's something that Qt 3 (which is what Konqueror is currently using) can do. I think it might be something possible in Qt 4. But if you're talking about consistency, only Opera has it's "loading" indicator on the URL bar/field. (And Opera is the most... "unique" among the more famous web browsers).

Anyway, like I said, these are changes that might come with KDE 4. This time, they're really focusing a lot on HIG, Usability, and Accessibility.