Bug 315573 - Dolphin "split" view shrinks Places panel, but "Close" (split view) does not restore
Summary: Dolphin "split" view shrinks Places panel, but "Close" (split view) does not ...
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Alias: None
Product: dolphin
Classification: Applications
Component: panels: places (show other bugs)
Version: 2.2
Platform: openSUSE Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Dolphin Bug Assignee
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-02-21 12:07 UTC by Haro de Grauw
Modified: 2013-05-05 18:18 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:


Attachments
screenshot (127.64 KB, image/png)
2013-02-21 12:09 UTC, Haro de Grauw
Details

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Description Haro de Grauw 2013-02-21 12:07:59 UTC
As follows:

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.  Set the width of the Places panel to any sensible setting >140px (which may be ok for laptops, but is unusably small on 1920x1080).

2.  Click "Split" to see two folder views. The Places panel is automatically shrunk to 140px.

3.  Click "Close" (<-- referring to the split view), i.e., go back to one folder view. The Places panel remains at 140px.
Actual Results:  
Panel reduced to unusable 140px.

Expected Results:  
Preferably, the "Split" command should not have affected the panel at all. But if that is unrealistic on smaller monitors, then at least the "Close" command should restore original panel size.
Comment 1 Haro de Grauw 2013-02-21 12:09:48 UTC
Created attachment 77485 [details]
screenshot
Comment 2 Haro de Grauw 2013-02-21 12:11:21 UTC
Another approach: set panel minimum width equal to the minimal width to display the panel without a scroll bar (see screenshot). This accounts for screen font size, which in turn may depend on resolution, and also accounts for different text lengths due to translations.
Comment 3 Frank Reininghaus 2013-02-28 18:12:47 UTC
Thanks for the bug report, but I cannot reproduce the problem. No automatic shrinking of the panel happens here when splitting the view. We don't handle such things inside Dolphin anyway - maybe there is a setting somewhere in the System Settings that could help you, but I'm not sure.
Comment 4 Haro de Grauw 2013-03-05 22:07:48 UTC
There could be a minimum window size at play here. With fullscreen Dolphin window, cannot reproduce here either. But try making a ridiculously narrow Dolphin window, then press 'Split': the panel is reduced in width, and if that's not enough, the window will actually increase its width (which is sensible). But, closing the Split view does not restore either window size, or panel width.
Comment 5 Christoph Feck 2013-04-18 11:03:09 UTC
To me, this is a WONTFIX. Every application that adds dynamic widgets (docks etc.) will resize the window, when it is too small. While many dialogs feature a "Show More" button, and automatically size depending on its state, guessing which size an application window should restore to would be impossible with multiple dynamic widgets, unless you come up with a patch proving me wrong.
Comment 6 Frank Reininghaus 2013-04-19 15:45:26 UTC
I agree with Christoph. Simply storing the 'pre-split' width of the panel to restore it later for such rare situations is going to cause other problems (for example, if the window has been resized manually after splitting), and there is probably no good way to fix this.
Comment 7 Janet 2013-05-04 14:59:38 UTC
The situation is not "rare" - it is an every day use case, normal workflow with dolphin... I very often switch between single and split window and it really is a pain having to re-drag the panel back to desired size every few minutes on my notebook display. I have my "feel good" panel size and I want to keep it, even in split view. If I am not content with the size fo the file panes I will resize the places pane my myself - but please don't decide that for me.  And it did work as expected before KDE SC  4.10...
Comment 8 Frank Reininghaus 2013-05-04 15:42:34 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
>   And it did work as expected before KDE SC  4.10...

But then I'm 99.5% sure that this issue has nothing to do with Dolphin. There are few changes in Dolphin between KDE 4.9 and 4.10, and I don't think that any of them affect the way the panels are resized. Maybe something changed in kdelibs or Qt.
Comment 9 Janet 2013-05-04 16:31:14 UTC
Actually the bug is available since KDE SC 4.9 as I have seen right now. I have tested it on three installations, Kubuntu and siduction, with KDE SC 4.8.2/dolphin 2.0, KDE SC 4.9.5/dolphin 2.1 and KDE SC 4.10.2/dolphin 2.2.

2.0/4.8 - everything as expected: Places sidebar never changes width on its own, split view or not, just the file pane shrinks. Perfect.
2.1/4.9 - introduction of bug: Places sidebar does not change width on its own with single window, no matter how big or small the window is (dragging to corner and back e.g.), so that's still ok. But the sidebar narrows its width when window is split and window is "thought" to be "too small" or split window (with correct size of sidebar) is dragged to corner (see also Bug 319318 about window size not restored).
2.2/4.10: places sidebar even changes width when single window is dragged to corner :(

The size of the sidebar is never restored once it got narrow. Only dolphin shows this nasty behaviour, even amarok is capable of restoring its pane sizes.

Could you please re-open this report? Even if it is not in the dolphin code but in the libs it would be nice if this could be fixed as it hinders the workflow to always have to resize the panel width.
Comment 10 Peter Paulsen 2013-05-04 16:48:42 UTC
Affects me too. The problem IMHO is not that the sidebar panel width is not restored, the problem is that it shrinks. The user decides that a certain sidebar size is the best for him and suddenly his decision is still valid but not respected anymore. I expect that my dolphin sidebar always stays the same width, no matter how big or small the window is, until I change it on my own. I expect that only the file part in the middle changes its width. I have locked the sidepanels and a locked panel for me is a panel that always stays in its current state. I stumbled across this bug in 4.10 when I dragged a dolphin window (non-split !!) to a screen edge and suddenly the sidebar got narrow - and not auto-restored. In 4.9 the sidebar for a non-split window kept its size. So I tried with a split window in 4.9 and 4.10 and the split window sidebar resizing problem also existed in 4.9. So in KDE 4.9 there was a mixed case.
Comment 11 Tanja Schulte 2013-05-04 20:59:20 UTC
IMHO it is a bit different. The shrinking of the panel and missing restoring with a split window even took place in dolphin 2.0 here. It seems to me it depends on three factors: 1. a relative small window, 2. information sidebar on the right and 3. size slider and storage space in the status bar.

The status bar with slider and space information prevents the file pane from shrinking to necessary minimal width. In KDE 4.8 the size slider also shrunk when the file pane was narrowed, therefore the bug was not so obvious. Since KDE 4.9 the size slider doesn't seem to shrink anymore, thus defining, together with the space info, a minimal file pane width, which gives dolphin no other choice than shrinking the left panel. 

When no right panel is open and the status bar contains no tools the left places panel here doesn't even shrink when I drag the split dolphin window into a screen corner.
Comment 12 Tanja Schulte 2013-05-04 21:02:07 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 13 Frank Reininghaus 2013-05-05 15:02:18 UTC
Thanks for the new comments. I can't say much about this at the moment because I had nothing to do with the changes to the Places Panel and the status bar in Dolphin 2.1/KDE 4.9, but I will try to have a look...
Comment 14 Frank Reininghaus 2013-05-05 18:08:32 UTC
(In reply to comment #9)

Well, based on what you and the others wrote, I think that what you consider problematic has nothing to do with the original report, which was about Dolphin not restoring the panel size after closing the split view.

I did some investigations, and now I believe that the behaviour change that you describe is due to the commit

http://quickgit.kde.org/?p=kde-baseapps.git&a=commit&h=213450d39704fc0154da5f0e45e4198af8239842

In contrast to what the commit description suggests, this commit not only implemented the KMessageWidget, but also made the width of the zoom slider and the "space information" fixed, which is why the entire status bar has a larger minimum width since Dolphin 2.1/KDE 4.9. If the window is rather narrow and the view is split, other parts of the window (like the places panel) might get resized to make sure that both views and their status bars maintain their minimum width.

One might consider to drop the fixed width of the status bar elements again (the fixed width also causes other problems, see bug 318395).

> Could you please re-open this report?

To make life easier for everyone, I tried to summarize the essential parts in a new report: bug 319373
Comment 15 Haro de Grauw 2013-05-05 18:18:41 UTC
Thanks for looking into this, Frank!