Why do people dislike Dolphin?

[Paul Rumelhart]

p.daniels wrote:
> On Monday November 3 2008 09:39:23 pm Steve Lamb wrote:
>   
>>     Actually, after looking at the home page for Krusader I am actually
>> shocked Dolphin was ever made.  Supposedly the whole reason for Dolphin's
>> being was to be a separate file manager independent of other components.  I
>> can respect that, really, I can.
>>
>>     From Krusader's home page.  It's been around for 7 years now.  IE, it
>> is a dedicated file manager that has had years to mature.
>>
>>     "We need a discrete file manager to take over for the code we no longer
>> want to maintain in Konqueror.  Do we incorporate this stable, mature,
>> powerful piece of software or start from scratch!?"
>>
>>     "START FROM SCRATCH!!!"  "YEA!!!!"
>>
>>     My brain hurts now.
>>     
>
> Well, in defense of the decision (not the application itself, but the 
> rationale of writing a new stand-alone file manager), Krusader is not for 
> wussies. It's not what folks are accustomed to. You have to learn stuff. You 
> might even have to Read The Friendly Manual. I'm being tongue-in-cheek here, 
> but it's true. If I'm a n00b and I can't even figure out the file manager, it's 
> probably going to be a deal-breaker. So no, as much as I love Krusader I've 
> also got to admit that it's targeted to a very specific group of people, which 
> does not include the majority of the public (or even the Linux using public).
>
> Another large reason for the creation of Dolphin was the "visual overload" 
> complaint about Konqueror, especially its settings dialog, and Krusader's a 
> beast, it's the Swiss Army File Manager. (Now, I don't believe that an 
> application as central to your computer use as your file manager can ever be 
> "too configurable," but that's a whole other flamewar.)
>
> -pete
>
>   

I think my biggest concerns with dolphin have to do with the 
presentation.  The left pane is more or less useless to me, or it would 
be if there was an up button.  To maneuver around correctly, you have to 
go to the root folder every now and then and then navigate back down to 
where you want to go.  I don't find that all that intuitive for new 
users.  Having a left and a right window pane also really cuts down on 
the actual content you are supposed to be looking at.  Dolphin does, in 
my opinion, look nicely professional.

Konqueror seems like a good balance to me for the new user.  It has 
back, forward, up, home, and refresh icons that all browser users are 
familiar with.  It also has the location bar, which users are also 
familiar with, and it doesn't hide where you actually are in the file 
system.  I think the idea that users get confused easily and you should 
go out of your way to hide vital information from them is a legacy of 
Microsoft that we should be striving to do away with.   Don't try to 
overwhelm them all  at once, ok, but don't take away from them what they 
need to navigate easily or to learn their system.  Konqueror also has 
the explorer-like folder tree on the left, which users are probably 
already familiar with.  The only confusing thing for them is probably 
the icons on the far left side, but they can ignore them for the most 
part without penalty.  I use konqueror a lot for sorting pictures into 
directories, and it's great for that.  You can put it in info list mode, 
add two or three new vertical location panes, and you have a really 
useful application.  You get a nice popup image when you put your cursor 
over an item that is bigger and more informative than that pane on the 
right. Konqueror looks more utilitarian, but also professional.

I've played around with krusader, and it is amazingly useful.  I just 
haven't taken the time to internalize it's functionality into my daily 
routine.  Maybe someday.  Krusader looks like it was made by programmers 
for other programmers.  Which is fine for me, but the moment a casual 
user clicks on the Useractions menu, it's all over.

Paul