Version: (using KDE KDE 3.3.1) Installed from: SuSE RPMs While programming my file manager (http://onefinger.sf.net) I noticed that a side panel containing the recently used directories greatly improved my productivity. I believe the reasons are: 1. FASTER NAVIGATION: a big part of my time is spent moving between a bunch of "important" folders. With the sidebar, moving between them is much quicker than opening many konqueror windows in the taskbar, or using the back/forward/up buttons. You just make one click on the destination directory, which you already see, and you are there. 2. DOES NOT CLUTTER THE TASKBAR: If you add a side panel with the recent directories, you can only have one open konqueror window. So the taskbar is no more cluttered, and still you get quick access to the important locations. The impact is similar to that of tabbed browsing, where your taskbar stops being cluttered. With the difference that the history panel is DYNAMIC, the tab bar is not. --- I recently tried Gnome and discovered that nautilus too (in non-spatial mode) does this: the side panel has a "history" mode which contains the recently visited folders. So I believe Konqueror should implement this too. You will probably think to extend the history sidebar of konqueror; but the new history should be ordered by recent usage (descending), and should be flat. I'm not sure the current history does that. --- There are also some improvements that could be made over the nautilus way. These improvements are all implemented in OneFinger, so you can try them. They give an idea of how powerful a history panel could be, if only we wanted. What do I mean by powerful? I mean that the history panel could "subsume" many konqueror features, making them useless---and removing clutter dramatically. Here are the improvements: 1. You could have the history contain not only folders, but a _merge_ of files and folders. When you click a folder, it is opened. When you click a file, it is executed in the default app. Then you could add 2 buttons to _narrow_ the history list: "show only files in history panel", "show only folders in history panel". This would subsume the "recent documents" applet. (You could add URIS as well in this list, but it may not be appropriate if yo want to keep the web-browsing and file-management configurations separate) 2. You can also add a _third_ button "only show bookmarked items in history panel". Once again, bookmarked items can be files and folders (or even URIs). This would subsume the "bookmarks" menu in konqueror. IMHO this would be a major unification and simplification. 3. You could make the items in the history panel "first-class citizens". What does it mean? With the current design, they can only be entered/executed (see point 1). But I may want to delete, or move, a folder which I see in the history. Currently it is very difficult to do that. I have to click not the folder, but ITS PARENT. There's something wrong with the concept that, in order to act on a folder, you have to be in the parent folder. Or I may want to open a file, which I see in the history, with a non-default program. So, it is very desirable for the history items to be fully manipulatable. 4. The history list (when visible) subsumes the toolbar buttons "back", "forward", "up", and maybe even "home". To go to some place, you click _directly_ upon it. Another simplification (it is more intuitive to click on the target). For reaching the home, it could be a bit more difficult, because you may not see it in the history, if you've not been there recently. But, in that case, you would click the button "only show bookmarked items in history", then the home would surely be visible. Yes, summing it all up it is one click more, but you have removed clutter from the taskbar. 5. You could have a button to change the sorting mode of the history panel: by name, by recent usage, by frequent usage. This buttons would be orthogonal to the buttons "only show files", "only show folders", "only show bookmarked items". (However, my experiments with OneFinger show that "recent usage" is by far the most used sorting mode. I suggest not to give this a high priority.) 6. You could add a quick-search box, like in kmail, to narrow the contents of the panel to only those items matching a string. 7. Since the history would almost always be scanned linearly, the scrollbar is not appropriate. When you absolutely have to find an item by name, you can use the quick-search box. Therefore, I found 4 big pushbuttons to be appropriate for scrolling. See the modified scrollbar in OneFinger.
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
While the Places bar in Dolphin is very useful, there should also be a "most recent places" bar, or maybe a sub-menu of the Places bar.
Maybe we could simply have directories shown in the sidebar history module too?