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Quoted

Original von Logge

Something I've been thinking of the past few days is that if Konqueror really needs to be both a web-browser and a filemanager at the same time. I think that a user that is new to GNU/n*x and KDE might be confused by the functions of Konqueror. Is it a webbrowser or is it a filemanager.

To me konqueror is much more than just a tool for browsing the web and a manager for local files. It's also an ftp client, webdav client, fish client, cvs frontend, ... (with the respective views and extensions)

The fact that it works with files on the local file system and files on a remote host is just a detail to the user due to the great network transparency of KDE. Konqueror makes them available to me independent of the way they are accessed. This abstraction leads to a great consistency. I can drag files from a webdav account and drop them to another box I have an ssh login on (using the fish protocol). Or from an ftp server to the local file system. I find this very user-friendly because I don't have to make myself familiar with 20 different applications that are all somewhat inconsistent and don't support half of the protocols I would like to use anyway...

Actually I like it the way it is... For the way I work it's necessary that konqueror understands all these protocols. I would not like a dumbed-down version of it.

One thing has been discussed on the mailing lists, though. There have been suggestions to make the profiles for web browsing and file management more distinct: The home URL should be defined per profile so that konqi would go the default page in web browsing mode and to the user's home directory when in file management mode. The toolbars and context menus should be adapted to the current mode, too...

But what exactly would be the things that would improve for the user if konqi was split up (other than being allegedly less confusing which would not justify - for me - the cost)? What do you see as missing in either "personality" of konqueror because the split has not been done?

Quoted

Original von Logge

Maybe there is no need to split konqi as i wrote before. Maybe the profiles should be more developed as You wrote. For example, I miss a real "my computer" profile where support for all types of filesystems can be viewed easily and in a very structured look-n-feel.

Do you know the sidebar that can be switched on and off by pressing F9? It offers access to different resources like devices, filesystems (local and remote) and KDE services. I hardly use it myself, but I've heard of a lot of people who are quite happy with it.

Quoted

Original von Logge

I also miss a daemon that automaticly mounts usb/fw devices that popups in this "my computer" profile.

This automounting thing have I been experimenting on for a couple of days. I had it working but not on a comfortable way...

I think some distributors offer these features out-of-the-box. The user experience depends very much of the used distro here. It would be nice if that stuff worked reliably everywhere. But IMHO that's beyond the scope of KDE.

I think it is fitting for Konqueror to cover both file management and web browsing, simply because of the overlap between the two. For example, I am on a network with a Samba file-sharing system. If Konqeror is, for instance, only a file browser, what do you use for networked file browsing? A web browser is not designed for optimized file browsing, but a file-browsing-specific app is not designed for network protocols.

Personally, I only use Konqueror as a file browser, simply because there are so many browsers available, especially Mozilla and FireFox, that are so well designed for the more specific task of web browsing.

Quoted

Original von Logge

Quoted

Original von cmbofh

Quoted

Original von Logge

I also miss a daemon that automaticly mounts usb/fw devices that popups in this "my computer" profile.

This automounting thing have I been experimenting on for a couple of days. I had it working but not on a comfortable way...

I think some distributors offer these features out-of-the-box. The user experience depends very much of the used distro here. It would be nice if that stuff worked reliably everywhere. But IMHO that's beyond the scope of KDE.

I use Gentoo and I haven't found any form of such feature but I've seen Suse have it. I really really miss this feature!!! Is the different kinds of dists really so different that such a feature wont work reliably everywhere??

No, it's just that some distros don't bother to install the operating system that way (at least not by default). I'm not at all surprised that Gentoo doesn't do that because I think it's against Gentoo's philosophy. It doesn't do things automatically behind the user's back. Maybe it's even easily possible by emerging the right package (You may want to ask that question in a Gentoo forum...).

I was thinking of SuSE, too, when I wrote the above. Knoppix also does it, AFAIK.

I guess I picked the wrong word when I said "reliably". I meant more something like "consistently" and "predictably". Anyway, support for pluggable devices is below the KDE level. There may be areas of contact, for example if the system automatically creates an icon for the new device on the KDE desktop, but the logic for this is on a lower level (typically a shell script provided by the distributor that gets called when a USB device is plugged in)

Quoted

Original von Logge

What does IMHO mean?? Not that familiar to such shortings...

IMHO = In my humble (or honest) opinion.
BTW: My favourite resource for looking up acronyms is http://www.acronymfinder.com/ , and if you wonder what "BTW" means click here. ;-)

I would prefer to separate Konqueror into two products.

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Original von stodge

I would prefer to separate Konqueror into two products.

Would you tell us why?

Quoted

Original von Logge

Quoted

Original von cmbofh

Do you know the sidebar that can be switched on and off by pressing F9? It offers access to different resources like devices, filesystems (local and remote) and KDE services. I hardly use it myself, but I've heard of a lot of people who are quite happy with it.

Yes, I know of that feature but I'm not very satisfied with it. I mean, it's usefull but it doesn't work "my way"

You could have a filemanagement profile use devices:/ as the URL

Besides, "devices" will be replaced by the new "media" IOSlave, which will also have HAL support.
http://cvs-digest.org/index.php?newissue=oct12004&category=Kde-Base#Kde-Base%3AFeature
http://freedesktop.org/Software/hal

As for automounting media the KDE-way, see http://webcvs.kde.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/kdenonbeta/kvm/

Cheers,
_