Version: (using KDE 4.3.4) Installed from: Ubuntu Packages Please add an option to change the way Dolphin distinguishes between bytes, KiB, MiB in filesize listings to something more visible. Currently, Dolphin simply lists the units after the value. However, this is often hard to distinguish. Adding an option to show the different orders of magnitude in different fonts, sizes, or colours would be very helpful. Of course, I only mean to suggest that the display of the Size column should be affected. The remaining columns should appear just as they are. Thanks.
I agree with this -- I would say the easiest way to handle it is actually to bring back the "show file sizes in bytes" option from Konqueror 3. Showing all sizes in the same unit is by far the easiest and quickest way to see what's bigger and what's smaller -- the bigger numbers are visually bigger! e.g. 4.1 MiB 849.1 KiB versus: 4322347 bytes 869459 bytes In bytes, it's immediately obvious that the first file is bigger, without even having to read the numbers. Currently, I'm always misreading the sizes when I've got some files that have more significant figures in a KiB size than a nearby MiB size. Another alternative is to simply display everything with a fixed number of figures, aligned at the decimal point: 004.122 MiB 849.081 KiB Then the eye won't be drawn to the visually different-size numbers, and one can just scan down the units column and look for MiB, KiB, B... but I argue that displaying in bytes is better, because reading any "units" format still requires two steps -- mentally register what units you've got, then glance left for the number. That first step already requires spinning up the language centres of the brain (slow), whereas comparing two sizes in bytes can be done with the much more primitive reptilian "that one's bigger; I'd rather eat the bigger one!" impulse (fast) ;) ~Felix.
How about showing bytes in a slightly smaller (-2px) font, KiB in the regular font, MiB in a bold font, and GiB in a bold+italic font? I know that sounds convoluted but from a users point of view it would make the comparison much easier (as Felix mentioned, it works on much lower-level brain functioning).
Created attachment 64657 [details] screen mockup of size-unit font scaling Here's what Dotan's suggestion of scaling MiB +2px and B -2px would look like -- interesting, and I think it could work, but I still favour the option to display sizes in bytes (with a thousand-separator).
Oh, and I wanted to add -- one thing that still bothers me is the different numbers of significant figures for file sizes. i.e. right now, if something is a single-digit number of GiB, MiB, or KiB, its size is displayed to less precision than if it's a 3-digit size in that unit, e.g.: 4322347 bytes is displayed as "4.1 MiB" but 869459 bytes is displayed as "849.1 KiB" This means the display gives twice as much information (precision) about the size of the file in the latter case. I find this both visually and mentally jarring. I don't think displaying extra decimal places for the smaller numbers would help, either, because this introduces two problems: 1) one has to go hunting for the decimal point (extra mental time to figure out how big something is) and 2) now the precision problem is reversed from a relative one (significant figures) to an absolute one (measurement resolution) -- sizes of small numbers of KiB, MiB, and GiB are more precise than larger ones, e.g. 4.123 MiB is effectively to the nearest KiB, whereas 123.4 MiB is only to the nearest 100 KiB. Overall, I still think that simply displaying sizes in bytes is the simplest solution, as it's always perfectly precise, and actually requires less programming to implement than the existing display logic :) ~Felix. PS: I originally landed here because I wanted to make this feature request for Konqueror; I'm hoping that any implementation in Dolphin would be available in both.
Created attachment 65208 [details] konqueror 3, for comparison The latest release from the Trinity KDE3 fork actually works decently in my distro, so I installed it. Here's a screen shot of the same batch of files I used in my mockup, for comparison. (I think I'll actually uninstall KDE4 and use Trinity now; it's a lot more responsive. I'd forgotten what it was like to have Konqueror respond instantly to clicks (this on my underclocked netbook, even) :) )
I currently don't have time to add an option for this for the next release because of some more severe issues that need to be solved, but I agree that the mixed units are not useful. The Windows Explorer and Apple's Finder us always KB as unit and it would be only a minor patch to change Dolphin to this (-> could be done for 4.8 already). My proposal would be that for small KB sizes (e.g. < 10 KB?) a decimal is shown e.g.: 5.2 KB 3.1 KB 7.8 KB and for sizes above only non-decimal values are shown: 23 KB 512 KB 10,234 KB 5,644.343 KB Would this be sufficient or do you want to have an option to switch between Bytes, KBytes and the current behavior? If an option is wanted this most probably must wait until 4.9...
... oh and I think it might be a good idea to skip the "KB" postfix in each cell and just change the header to "Size (KB)" (?)
I could probably live with everything being in KB, but I really would prefer the old 'bytes' feature back -- it's one of those things about KDE4 that made me think, "we had it and it worked; why'd they break it?" It also has the side effect of being a quick way to see if two files might be identical. (By no means a rigorous test of course, but for file formats that change size every time you save them [e.g. documents & text files] it's useful.) On making the KB option omit the units on displayed values: I think that's not a good idea, since the convention is that a unitless number filesize is in bytes (e.g. ls, and the old bytes display from Konqueror 3 and numerous other file managers). As far as I know, even Apple has always kept the suffix "K" for file sizes -- imitating that and shortening KB to K would be fine (or perhaps "Ki" if you're feeling adventurous/pedantic :) ). ~Felix.
Hi Peter. I must counter that I would prefer _not_ to see everything in bytes. Please make this optional. Additionally, in my opinion the units _should_ be next to the size, not at the top in the column title. How far do we want the user's eye to travel? And you certainly don't want to add a vertical component to that travel! (human eyes scan left-right just fine, but vertical scanning is extremely tiring)
Regarding the KB vs. KiB issue, please do keep it at it's current KiB units! This is one of the really nice subtleties of KDE.
It seems I cannot make all of you happy to 100 % ;-) However I've to decide for one direction as at least for 4.8 making this configurable is no option and now have pushed the following fix: - The size-column shows everything in KiB (or in KB dependent on your global setting in system-settings -> Locale -> Country/Region & Language -> Other -> Byte size units). I've decided against using Bytes as unit because the numbers get very large for common files like e.g. a JPEG with 2,345,234 Bytes and I need to focus for the main target group of Dolphin (see http://dolphin.kde.org/philosophy.html). - The unit stays next to the size as Dotan suggests in comment 9 If there is still a demand for having Bytes I'd kindly ask to open a new wish for this (I'm open to make this configurable if I've the impression that there is a demand for a user group > 0.1 % ;-)) Thanks.
Git commit 39992aad7096d5caa6b9b6cb1e28f6ea2ef234ca by Peter Penz. Committed on 04/11/2011 at 21:54. Pushed by ppenz into branch 'master'. Don't use mixed units in size-column of details-view This makes it tricky to compare the filesizes without adjusting the sort-order, so now all sizes in the size-column are shown in KiB or KB (dependent on the KLocale setting). BUG: 219932 FIXED-IN: 4.8.0 Related fixes: - Stay consistent with the rounding when using the KiB/KB unit in the statusbar. - Fix sorting-by-size issue for folders - Show "Unknown" in the size-column when the number of items cannot be determined. M +7 -1 dolphin/src/dolphinviewcontainer.cpp M +8 -3 dolphin/src/kitemviews/kfileitemlistwidget.cpp M +16 -6 dolphin/src/kitemviews/kfileitemmodel.cpp M +48 -36 dolphin/src/views/dolphinview.cpp M +6 -0 dolphin/src/views/dolphinview.h http://commits.kde.org/kde-baseapps/39992aad7096d5caa6b9b6cb1e28f6ea2ef234ca
(In reply to comment #11) > - The unit stays next to the size as Dotan suggests in comment 9 ... and as Felix suggested too in comment 8
I'm sorry but I need to reopen this bug again because of the following commit that I've done for bug 289850: "Revert the 2.0 decision to always use KB for file-sizes The feedback on bugs.kde.org has shown that the previous behavior (= show size with best-matching unit) is preferred by most users. I initially wanted to make this configurable, but for implementing it in a non-hacky way extending KLocale from kdelibs would have been required. I'm not sure whether the usecase in Dolphin justifies having such a configuration in KLocale - however as kdelibs is frozen at the moment this is no option and the old behavior has been restored. BUG: 289850 FIXED-IN: 4.9.0"
*** Bug 227747 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I don't quite understand how it is hacky (but then of course, I don't know the internals). We've had the automatic mode earlier (and will have again apparently), and the kiB-only in 4.8. So both seem to work. Someone said that if there was an option for this, it should be more of a KDE-global setting. Well, since the Dolhpin part is used in a number of areas of KDE, it is already semi-global. So I'd still welcome an option. As a sidenote: For me, the mixed mode became even more difficult to read ever since the writing in all the columns became non-black---for whatever reason (what percentile of the userbase doesn't have the filename in the far left column?). The reduced contrast makes it quite harder to read.
Resetting assignee to default as per bug #305719
I'm afraid it seems there's no way to make everyone happy here. But the vast majority of people prefer mixed units, and this is the way pretty much all other file managers have things, so it's not some kind of Beastly Abberation Against Man.