Bug 132154

Summary:	Better informations concerningf USB keys removal
Product:	[Applications] konqueror	Reporter:	FACORAT Fabrice <f.faber-pro>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Konqueror Developers <konq-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	finex, pacho
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Mandriva RPMs
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	rough mockup showing konqueror with this headband

Description FACORAT Fabrice 2006-08-09 19:32:01 UTC

Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.5.4)
Installed from:    Mandriva RPMs
OS:                Linux

An issue with unpluggable removable media like USB keys/HD, is the fact that you can unplugged them whenever you want. As most of the times writes on media are asynchronuous for performance considerations, you may end up with corrupted/incomplete data. One solution is to write synchronously data, but you will have poor performance. Another possibility is that the user correctly umount the devices ( thus flushing write cache, etc ... ) before removing the drive. However, most of the time the user will forget, or doesn't know he needs to do this. It's the same under Windows, or Linux or Mac.
IMHO one solution is to do like Firefox is doing for popup. When Firefox blocked a popup, a yellow headband is displayed at the top of the page. The same could be done telling the user to click on the "Disconnect Safely" button before removing the media to prevent data loss. This way the headband will always reminds the user what he needs to do ( should always be displayed when the user is browsing in the removable media ) and also why ( to prevent data loss ). However for big hard drives and big files, as the umount operation could last a long time, the feedback should be correct ( "please wait while ensuring data integrity, don't remove the drive before" ).

Comment 1 FACORAT Fabrice 2006-08-09 19:34:15 UTC

Created attachment 17314 [details]
rough mockup showing konqueror with this headband

rough mockup showing konqueror with this headband.
The user should be able to remove the notification ( to have more space ).
A button is present at the end to do the "unmount" action.
I choose the yellow color, because it wasd the one for Firefox, but also it's
the color used most of the time for warning, etc ...

Comment 2 FACORAT Fabrice 2006-12-08 15:20:31 UTC

still valid.
users doesn't find easily how to safely remove the media. Many people never use right click ( especially Mac users ;) ), and having to come back to media:/ ( or device:/ ) to do it is not obvious/convenient

Comment 3 FACORAT Fabrice 2007-01-12 18:44:41 UTC

Still valid.

Comment 4 FACORAT Fabrice 2007-02-20 17:37:34 UTC

still valid.

Comment 5 FACORAT Fabrice 2007-03-18 22:46:10 UTC

still valid. This headband could provide more safety and more usablity. Unmounting a device is still complicated, especially when the icons are not on the desktop.

Procedure :

- plug device
- select "open in a new window" in the kde manager dialog
- browse device

Now to remove the device :

- choice 1 :
    + close the konqueror window used for the device
    + double click on the peripheral icon on the desktop 
    + right click on the device icon -> "safely umount"


- choice 2 :
    + Go up in the konqueror window untill you reach the media:/ root folder
    + right click on the device icon -> "safely umount"


If someone is finding this evident for a newcomer ...

Comment 6 FiNeX 2009-09-15 14:37:37 UTC

Being the file management part of konqueror in KDE 3 replaced by Dolphin in KDE 4, I've set this bug dup of bug #149118 (which is reported against dolphin).

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 149118 ***