Dolphin Folders pane suggestions

[Matthew_Hinson]

Hi, new Linux user here. After trying both Gnome and KDE, I ended up with a strong preference for the latter, with Dolphin playing a big part. However, I still encountered a few papercuts in its Folders pane that, if addressed, would make for an even smoother experience. Please let me know what you think.

Keyboard shortcuts

When I select a folder in the Folders pane and press the Delete key, I’d like that folder to be deleted. Instead, I get a message in the file list saying that nothing is selected. The same goes for F2 to rename.

Selecting folders

Unlike the file list in Details mode, where you can click across the entire width of a row to select a file or folder, the Folders pane requires you to click within the folder’s name. It would be nice if we had full-row selection there as well.

Expanding folders

On Windows, I use an extension called Open Shell which lets me not just select, but also expand folders by clicking anywhere in their row:

The larger clickable area means you don’t have to be as precise with the mouse compared to clicking the small “+”, which in turn lets you reach your desired folder more quickly. Maybe something similar could be added to Dolphin?

Of course, this behavior would not be for everyone, so the most I’d ask here is a checkbox for opting into it.

Separated Places and Folders panes

I’m dual booting with Windows and keep all my data on a secondary SSD. When I select this drive in the Places pane, this jumps to a mount folder in the Folders pane, which I find a bit jarring:

• I have to move the mouse all the way from the Places pane to the mount folder in the Folders pane to start exploring the drive’s folder structure.
• Said mount folder is surrounded with “clutter” from the OS drive. I understand of course that this is simply how Linux works - but at least for me, it’s a technical detail that I don’t necessarily want to see.

If instead of a drive, you select a Place such as “Downloads” or “Trash”, you get a much cleaner result already: the Folders pane only shows the subfolders of that place, not its parents or siblings. However, it’s still a separate pane.

What would you think about combining the Places and Folders panes into one, so that it becomes possible to expand a drive and see its folders immediately below it?

Mouse back button

The Back button on the mouse works after selecting something in the file list, but it doesn’t work for the Places and Folders panes. It would be nice if it did.

[Sadi]

I can only comment on the issue you experience regarding Folders and Places just as an ordinary user with a little experience, especially in using a separate partition for user data (e.g. “Documents”, “Pictures” etc.).
I avoid such issues by mounting that partition, and then binding these folders in /etc/fstab like this:

UUID= /media/<user_name>/<partition_label> …
/media/<user_name>/<partition_label>/Documents /home/<user_name>/Documents …
/media/<user_name>/<partition_label>/Downloads /home/<user_name>/Downloads …
/media/<user_name>/<partition_label>/Music /home/<user_name>/Music …
/media/<user_name>/<partition_label>/Pictures /home/<user_name>/Pictures …
/media/<user_name>/<partition_label>/Videos /home/<user_name>/Videos …

Currently I use this setup with two Linux distros, and haven’t used Windows at all for many years, but as far as I can remember it works also with Windows, i.e. with a NTFS data partition. I think I only needed some extra mounting options to prevent everything on that partition from being executable by default. I think this worked well: defaults,nls=utf8,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=002,fmask=113,noexec

[meven]

Those are nice feature requests.

Please report them to dolphin folder-panel components to bugs.kde.org

You can view the already reported bugs for the folder panels here:

Bug List

[Matthew_Hinson]

Thank you for your replies. I didn’t find existing reports for these items, so I created them.

[skyfishgoo]

hi, welcome.

when i left windows, one of the things i was happy to leave behind was that separate pane (pain) on the left side of the windows navigator where you need to pick the folders in order to navigate.

dolphin’s details view has all that built into it so there is no more need to even use that pane, and even if you are using icons for compact views, you can still navigate using the buttons in the tool bar (or the keyboard).

shortcuts

this behavior is by design and i would not want to see it change… your actions in the Folder or Places panel are actions that are taking place in the dolphin application GUI, and not upon your file system…. nothing you click on or do in those panels should make any permanent changes to your files, its for your viewing convenience only.

selecting

in the details view, it very much does matter where you click along the line, if you click at the very front, you expand the folder, if you click on the file name you get to rename the file, if you click anywhere else it will select it… the right click behavior is different depending on where you click as well.

but to your point about the Folders panel, except for the expand icon, i can click anywhere on the line and it will navigate to that folder… i don’t need to be over the folder name, but i’m using version 23.08, so maybe you have the plasma 6 version.

expanding

adding this would be a nice feature: a check box alternative to add somewhere in the dolphin configuration settings, maybe under general… or possibly as a context menu check box when you right click on an empty space inside the panel.

Auto-Expand Selected

or just make it the default behavior, i don’t think anyone would notice.

places vs folders

or, you could just move your mouse to the side and explore the folders from the details view… you won’t see any “clutter” if you don’t have the folder panel visible

but i see your point and i think dolphin already does a good job of cleaning up the folders view as long as your remain in your $HOME folder, but once you venture out of it, then it displays the entire root tree.

if you want, you can make a link to the mounted folder and just add that link to Places… then you won’t suffer the expansion of the whole tree.

[Confusion_Dreaded]

To rename a file with a mouse click, it’s best to use a double-click with a delay on the second click. The first click selects the file. A quick double-click opens the file/folder. A click followed by a short delay on the second click renames the file. This eliminates the need to precisely target the text label.

[Matthew_Hinson]

@skyfishgoo

when i left windows, one of the things i was happy to leave behind was that separate pane (pain) on the left side of the windows navigator

And I was happy to find that Dolphin, as one of very few Linux file managers apparently, has the pane that I’m so used to. To each their own, I suppose

nothing you click on or do in those panels should make any permanent changes to your files, its for your viewing convenience only.

The Folders panel already allows renaming/deleting/… folders via the context menu, doesn’t it?

if you click on the file name you get to rename the file

But only if the file is already selected from a previous click, right?

i don’t need to be over the folder name, but i’m using version 23.08, so maybe you have the plasma 6 version.

I’m indeed on the latest Kubuntu with Plasma 6.4.5.

if you want, you can make a link to the mounted folder and just add that link to Places

A nice idea, but it just makes the Folders pane show my secondary drive sitting among my home folders instead - which is less “clutter” than it sitting among the whole OS drive, but still not ideal.

[skyfishgoo]

@Matthew_Hinson

The Folders panel already allows renaming/deleting/… folders via the context menu, doesn’t it?

it does not, at least not in my version.

@Matthew_Hinson

But only if the file is already selected from a previous click, right?

you do have to select it first, and you do have to select the name, and you do have to have Rename Inline check in the dolphin settings.

this is wise because you don’t want it to be super easy to do by mistake.

@Matthew_Hinson

makes the Folders pane show my secondary drive sitting among my home folders instead - which is less “clutter” than it sitting among the whole OS drive, but still not ideal.

vs

what would be “ideal” then?

[Matthew_Hinson]

it does not, at least not in my version.

Well, rejoice, because in the current version it does

You can even drag a folder onto another, which shows a popup menu asking whether you want to move or copy. Adding shortcut keys seems like a small step from here.

what would be “ideal” then?

The same behavior as the file list: showing only the contents of the selected Place. In fact, this seems useful not just for drives, but also for the home folders - after all, I think we can agree that the current view is a bit redundant:

The ideal ideal for me would be merging the Places and Folders panels into one as mentioned, so that we could expand the Documents place and see its subfolders right below it instead of in a separate panel. But I do of course realize that this would be quite a radical change and perhaps not welcomed by long-time KDE users.

Anyway, I’ve created the tickets as said, so I’ll leave it up to the developers from here on.