Bug 207309

Bug confirmed.

I don't know if it would be better to implement the feature or just remove the option.

> A middle click does open the folder in a new window

For me, with "Open folders in separate windows" checked, a middle click opens folders in a new tab, not a new window.  Left-click opens folders in the same window, as this bug describes.

I'm using konqueror 4.3.1 with kde 4.3.2 according to the "About Konqueror" dialog available from the Help menu.

It is a help for me to have individual windows in konqueror because I can then keep track of what I am doing at the moment.  Having to go back and forth between multiple directories is not very efficient for me.  

So, I would prefer to either keep it as is, or fix the bug - not to remove the feature itself.

(In reply to comment #2)
> > A middle click does open the folder in a new window
> 
> For me, with "Open folders in separate windows" checked, a middle click opens
> folders in a new tab, not a new window.  Left-click opens folders in the same
> window, as this bug describes.
> 
> I'm using konqueror 4.3.1 with kde 4.3.2 according to the "About Konqueror"
> dialog available from the Help menu.

Have you unchecked the box for "Open links in new tab instead of new window" under Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> General

that option is like the firefox option.  To get new windows instead of tabs, the box has to be unchecked - for me at least.

> Have you unchecked the box for "Open links in new tab instead of new window"
> under Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> General

I have unchecked it now -- thanks for the tip. The "Open links" label is unintuitive to me when thinking of a file manager -- I don't think of my sub-folders as links. It's also unfortunate that "Open links in new tab instead of new window" affects both web browsing and file management. When browsing the web, I actually prefer opening links in new tabs.

I do continue experiencing the behavior described by this bug. That is, with 
"Open folders in new window" checked in Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> File Management, a left click does not open folders in a new window.

(In reply to comment #4)
> > Have you unchecked the box for "Open links in new tab instead of new window"
> > under Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> General
> 
> I have unchecked it now -- thanks for the tip. The "Open links" label is
> unintuitive to me when thinking of a file manager -- I don't think of my
> sub-folders as links. It's also unfortunate that "Open links in new tab instead
> of new window" affects both web browsing and file management. When browsing the
> web, I actually prefer opening links in new tabs.
> 
> I do continue experiencing the behavior described by this bug. That is, with 
> "Open folders in new window" checked in Settings -> Configure Konqueror -> File
> Management, a left click does not open folders in a new window.

Konqueror uses Dolphin's KPart for filemanagement now and the Dolphin KPart does not support such functionality. This needs to be implemented there in order for it to work in Konqueror as it did before.

*** Bug 245874 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

@David: Do you think it makes sense to make this option work again (it's been broken for more than 4 years now), or should it just be removed?

I have no idea how many users would use this option if it was working -- this kind of issue is exactly why I moved to kdelibs and Qt, there it's much easier to talk to the "users" of the code, which are the developers :-) Hehe.


On the one hand, I remember liking this mode in OS/2 (because you could then save per-directory window sizes and layouts etc.), and I like the nice "screenshots" we have for this checkbox in the KCM.

On the other hand, if this is the only bug report about it, i.e. only one or two users have complained about the broken feature in 4 years..... this might be the answer to "is this really needed".

I guess dolphin (with all its sidebars) isn't well adapted to this. If the bug is fixed, it could be made a konqueror-only setting, which fits with the idea that konqueror is a slightly more "advanced user" tool.

Heh, indeed there are TODOs about this in the code:
konqueror.kcfg:    <entry key="AlwaysNewWin" type="Bool"> <!--TODO dolphinpart-->
dolphinpart.cpp:122:    // TODO there was a "always open a new window" (when clicking on a directory) setting in konqueror

Any idea how many other bugs have been marked as duplicates of this one?  The number of users/comments for this bug might not represent the true figure in that case.

I have learned to get by without this feature, but all of the work-arounds are a little less efficient than just a quick left click.

I would return to left-clicking for a new window, if the functionality were restored.  But after not having it for so long, it isn't that big of a deal to me anymore.

*** Bug 204948 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Another possible duplicate https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=262569

(In reply to comment #9)
> Any idea how many other bugs have been marked as duplicates of this one? 

Yes. One duplicate report.

I'm not against implementing this, it's just that someone has to volunteer to do it. We all have extremely long TODO-lists, and considering the attention that this bug report got, it seems that there are more important issues to work on out there.

In any case, this is more a feature request than a bug from a Dolphin point of view. I'd say that the best temporary solution (at least until someone implements this feature) is to just remove the setting in Konqueror.

> I'm not against implementing this, it's just that someone has to volunteer to do it.

But you've got volunteers to break it.

(In reply to comment #13)
> But you've got volunteers to break it.

I don't want to start a big discussion here, but if you've followed KDE development during the last 5 or more years, you know that the transition from Qt 3 to Qt 4 was highly non-trivial, in particular for all code that deals with model-view stuff (which applies to the code required for file management). It's not like one could have just taken the old code for Konqueror's file views and reused it in KDE 4.

Therefore, I believe it's wrong to say that "you've got volunteers to break it". I would rather say that no one volunteered to port every little thing from Konqueror 3.x to the new code base. Which is sort of understandable because it would have been a huge effort. This is confirmed by the fact that many people complained about a lack of file management features in KDE 4.x, in particular in the early KDE 4 days, but I'm not aware of a single person who even tried to port KDE 3's file views to KDE 4 to make them usable as a KPart for Konqueror.

Thank you for the bug report.

As this report hasn't seen any changes in 5 years or more, we ask if you can please confirm that the issue still persists.

If this bug is no longer persisting or relevant please change the status to resolved.

Looking at the configuration options in dolphin 21.12.3,

under "Startup" > "General", there is a checkbox for "Open new folders in tabs"

with that option either unchecked or checked, the behavior is still to navigate into the clicked on folder like a browser.

I don't know what the "Open new folders in tabs" option is meant to do.

A middle click with either  checked or unchecked also just opens the clicked on folder will open in a new tab, but never a new window.

Looks like the functionality has been entirely removed, and the only way to get a folder opened in a new window is to right click and select open in new window.  

After so many years, I doubt the functionality is coming back.