Bug 96209

Summary: Toolbar handling is unintuitive and unflexible
Product: [Unmaintained] kdelibs Reporter: Malte S. Stretz <mss>
Component: kedittoolbarAssignee: David Faure <faure>
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED    
Severity: wishlist CC: bluedzins, nx.devnull
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: unspecified   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Malte S. Stretz 2005-01-03 11:09:17 UTC 
Version:           unknown (using KDE 3.3.90 (alpha1, CVS >= 20041206), Gentoo)
Compiler:          gcc version 3.3.4 20040623 (Gentoo Linux 3.3.4-r1, ssp-3.3.2-2, pie-8.7.6)
OS:                Linux (i686) release 2.6.7-gentoo-r11

This actually bugged me since years, now finally a bug report.

The way toolbars in Konqueror (the prime example, this is probably true for all apps which use a lot of plugins/KParts) are currently handled is, from the point of view of a mere user, a completely unintuitive mess.

There are just too many technical terms and limitations lurking from the backend.  The following is a list of things which bugged me.  I actually know, or can guess, most of the answers for the questions.  But the technically inexperienced user doesn't (or shouldn't) know and care about the technical background.


1. Why can't I move any button from any plugin to whichever toolbar I want?

For example did I try to put the KHTML "Security" button on the Location bar.  No chance.  It doesn't even appear while that bar is selected, only when I select "Main Toolbar <htmlpart>".


2a.  Why are there two "Main Toolbar"s?  One with "<Konqueror>" and one with "<khtmlpart>"?  And which one is actually the one I currently see?

2b.  What the heck does "<khtmlpart>", "<khtmlkttsd>", "<khtml_kget>"... mean?  And which one is actually displayed?  And where?


3a.  What is an "ActionList"?  And which one is the one called "viewmode_toolbar"?  And which buttons does it contain?

3b.  And why can I "remove it [but] won't be able to re-add it"?


4a.  What does "<Merge>" do?  Oh, the dialog tells me, but isn't there a less technical term?

4b.  Why can't I re-add this one either (bug 85429)?  And why doesn't the dialog tell me so?  (I must admit I didn't try to remove and re-add it, because, umm..., maybe I won't get it back)

4c.  Currently the "<Merge>" element is enclosed by two line separators.  So when a component doesn't have any buttons, I'll see two ugly single separators on my toolbar (must admit, I haven't tested this for some time and dunno if its still true).  OTOH do those bars make sense when there are buttons.


5.  From the "container" toolbars (like the Extra Toolbar, wherever that one may be), why can I only remove items from the "embedded" toolbars, but not  the sub-bar as a whole (to avoid destroying it)?


6.  Why can't I add buttons twice (bug 70884)?  Maybe I want to have one button at two places or want to add it to a different bar without "destroying" the hidden one.


That's all I can currently think of.  I hope some of these limitations can be get rid of for KDE 4.  If it doesn't fit with the current dialog, well, maybe a more intuitive design is possible :)

Thanks for listening.
Comment 1 Eckhart Wörner 2005-01-05 17:41:48 UTC 
Some other questions, partly heard from others; I don't know whether they are fixed in CVS, at least they are not fixed in 3.3.2:

7a. Why does the line separator sometimes get translated and sometimes not?
7b. Is there no better way to symbolize a line separator than by showing some text?

8. Why can't I select the toolbars I want to use in the file manager, only in the web browser?

9. Why can't I easily create different toolbars in the konqueror file manager and web browser?

10. I recently something very intuitive ─ it's called firefox. Why can't I customize my toolbars as quickly as in Firefox?

11. Why is there an up button in the web browser?

12. Why the hell does a toolbar have buttons, even if I deleted all of them?

13. When I remove a button from a toolbar, why does the selection jumps to the end of the list?

Also thanks for listening.
Comment 2 Gary Cramblitt 2005-01-12 17:06:30 UTC 
"2b.  What the heck does "<khtmlpart>", "<khtmlkttsd>", "<khtml_kget>"... mean?  And which one is actually displayed?  And where?"

Thanks for pointing this out.  I changed khtmlkttsdrc file to this

<!DOCTYPE kpartgui>
<kpartgui name="Speak Text" library="libkhtmlkttsdplugin" version="1" >
 <MenuBar>
  <Menu name="tools">
  <Text>&amp;Tools</Text>
   <Action name="tools_kttsd"/>
  </Menu>
 </MenuBar>
 <ToolBar name="Extra Toolbar">
  <Action name="tools_kttsd"/>
 </ToolBar>
</kpartgui>

Which changed the toolbar name to "Extra Toolbar" (why aren't all the Extra Toolbars merged?) and the name in parenthesis in Configure Toolbars dialog is now "Speak Text".  However, now under Settings -> Toolbar, "Extra Toolbar" appears with nothing in parenthesis.

--confused programmer :/
Comment 3 Ninaw de Leon 2005-01-30 01:45:29 UTC 
I agree. This has really bugged me ever since. Why can't there be one main toolbar where one can just drag and drop the icons? If the user wants additional toolbars then there should probably be a way to create new ones. Another nice feature would be to have a button or a key combination which hides all the toolbars at once.
Comment 4 Christoph Feck 2013-07-23 14:59:17 UTC 
*** Bug 315430 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 5 Christoph Cullmann 2024-09-14 16:18:01 UTC 
Hi,

kdelibs (version 4 and earlier) is no longer maintained since a few years.

KDE Frameworks 5 or 6 might already have implemented this wish.

If not, please re-open against the matching framework if feasible or against the application that shows the issue.

We then can still dispatch it to the right Bugzilla product or component.

Greetings
Christoph Cullmann