Why do people dislike Dolphin?

[Dotan Cohen]

2008/11/4 Steve Lamb <grey at dmiyu.org>:
> 1: URL lets me know quickly where I am as well as allow me to quickly access
> other areas not only of my local file system but remote file systems through
> SMB://, FISH://, FTP:// (etc, etc, etc) links.
>

Configurable in current Dolphin. Furthermore, the URL bar can be made
active: it shows 'friendly' names until it is clicked on. Furthermore,
the breadcrumbs are active and you can cc into a sister folder of any
one of the parents with a dropdown menu. In any case you can configure
the URL bar to be just like Konqi.

> 2: The Back/Foward buttons aren't entirely needed but the up is because moving
> *up* the directory structure is as important as moving down.  Moving down is
> simple, click on the folders in the main display.
>

Adding Up is easy. I also agree that it should be default, I will file a bug.

> 3: With the small screen footprint I can put two of these on the screen
> side-by-side I can quickly copy/move files between two directories with
> minimal fuss.
>

The side panels can be closed in Dolphin. I don't like the Information
one either, but watch mousemaids use a computer and you will see how
useful that sidebar is to them.

>    Now, on the right I present Dolphin in all it's fail.  Note that the
> actual display in the middle is a tad larger than the Konqueror window.  I
> didn't think to resize them to match until after taking and uploading the
> screenshot.  But notice the large wasted space to the left and right.  The
> "places" panel is pretty much useless.  Case in point, my Virtual Machine *has
> no floppy!*

I will confirm that Dolphin show inaccessible drives and file a bug.

> On the right side we have a big honkin' icon which is just a
> replication of the tiny icon in the details view itself.  It also helpfully
> tells me information which is already in the detail view.  So that, too is
> useless.  Why those are turned on by default is beyond me.  They do nothing
> but waste space!
>
>    The next step of fail is... no URL bar.  Great, I'm in HOME.  Yay.  The
> path is?  Oh, no idea.  I can enter a new path where?  Oh, I have to pull up a
> real location bar to do that.  Compared to Konqueror's view, useless.
>

Yet the nontechnical users who do not understand the filesystem
hierarchy love this. Really, I've had at least two users comment how
great it is without even asking. I was dumbfounded both times.

>    Finally the biggest fail of them all.  The one that shows how flat out
> dumb the developers are.  Go ahead, navigate from /home/grey to /home.  Oh,
> awwwww, *NO UP ARROW*!  I could configure it and add it in.  I could learn
> ALT-UP by looking at the "Go" menu.  I could hit CNTL-L to bring up the URL
> bar to type in /home.  I could click on "Root" in the oh-so-useless "places"
> panel and navigate back down to /home.  But who in their right mind hides the
> second most important navigation option for a filesystem *BY DEFAULT*?!
>
>    FAIL!
>

Calm down. The developers are human and I will file a bug on it. Don't
insult them, that is considered bad etiquitte and won't do any good.
This is not real life.

>    By default Dolphin is larger, less informative, less useful and harder to
> use.  It can be wrestled into some semblance of usability but to do so would
> mean arm-wresling it to look like... Konqueror!  So why go through all the
> trouble when we can just use the sensible and highly usable software in the
> first place.
>

With the exception of the Up menu Dolphin is much easier for
mousemaids. Power users like us will configure it anyway.

>    And that is why Dolphin is hated.  Loathed.  Shunned.  And rightly so.  It
> is, in a phrase, a case study on how not to make a file manager.
>

Thanks, Steve. If you find any other usability issues please follow up.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

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