Bug 436702 - Old Quick Open functionality newly as an Tool View option
Summary: Old Quick Open functionality newly as an Tool View option
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Alias: None
Product: kate
Classification: Applications
Component: application (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 21.04.0
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWrite Developers
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2021-05-06 19:44 UTC by Jaromir Stehlik
Modified: 2021-05-06 21:32 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
New look with not arranged columns and path prefixes missing (113.31 KB, image/png)
2021-05-06 20:21 UTC, Jaromir Stehlik
Details
Old look with arranged columns and full paths (185.50 KB, image/png)
2021-05-06 20:22 UTC, Jaromir Stehlik
Details
Suggested place where the old functionality could be (112.32 KB, image/png)
2021-05-06 20:24 UTC, Jaromir Stehlik
Details

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Description Jaromir Stehlik 2021-05-06 19:44:37 UTC
Hi,
I noticed that Quick Open funcionality changed from "tab-like" to "widget-like" view. This is an interesting change but I must say I miss the old functionality a lot. The main advantage was to have two distinct columns: one with file name and other with full path, arranged in a table, and, also, the old Quick Open stayed on screen because it couldn't have easily lost its focus (and disappeared).

I think that now, as Quick Open changed, it more represents Quick Open feature, but the old Quick Open could be preserved as a Tool View called "Recent files" or so. The old functionality fits more the Tool View design anyway. As a tool view it could stay as a pane even after opening a file from such "Recents", so that one can open more files one after another.

Thanks.
Comment 1 Waqar Ahmed 2021-05-06 20:05:28 UTC
Hi,

I have to say that what you suggested is very vague and I didn't understand it at least. What you seem to describe is not what the old quick open did, except for the focus part. The functionality of old and new quick open is same, only the view was changed, it still serves the same purpose and does the exact same thing. 

For recent files, we already have a menu entry.
Comment 2 Jaromir Stehlik 2021-05-06 20:21:53 UTC
Created attachment 138196 [details]
New look with not arranged columns and path prefixes missing
Comment 3 Jaromir Stehlik 2021-05-06 20:22:57 UTC
Created attachment 138198 [details]
Old look with arranged columns and full paths
Comment 4 Jaromir Stehlik 2021-05-06 20:24:06 UTC
Created attachment 138201 [details]
Suggested place where the old functionality could be
Comment 5 Waqar Ahmed 2021-05-06 20:30:15 UTC
Full path is intentionally changed to start from project's base directory.

 > Suggested place where the old functionality could be

Do you mean where the project tool view is? That is way too narrow for such a thing and I am unsure if this is wanted even.
Comment 6 Christoph Cullmann 2021-05-06 20:53:30 UTC
(In reply to Waqar Ahmed from comment #5)
> Full path is intentionally changed to start from project's base directory.
> 
>  > Suggested place where the old functionality could be
> 
> Do you mean where the project tool view is? That is way too narrow for such
> a thing and I am unsure if this is wanted even.

A possibility would be to have the old two column variant as option.
But then somebody must step up to implement that.
I am personally happy with the more compact new variant that is more like what other editors provide for this purpose.
Comment 7 Jaromir Stehlik 2021-05-06 21:17:38 UTC
Hi,
I appended three images for the better demonstration of what I meant.

Focus behavior isn't the only thing that changed in the way of displaying files in current Quick Open functionality but f.e. also the way of displaying the paths. Other thing that changed is sorting - in old view all items are sorted by path and in new I can't see any sort key, neither can I see paths aligned under each other, so now, manual searching through the list of unsorted files, imho, doesn't make sense and is harder (please see New look*.png and Old look*.png files).

In a vast project, it could be hard to orientate in paths without prefixes, but I don't mean to criticize the new look and arrangement of current Quick Open, closing when losing focus, etc. My point is, whether it would be possible to preserve the tab-like look and feel either in configuration or as a new panel in Tool View (please see Suggested place*.png file). The latter variant enables to have really Quick open as it is in current version and also have some convenient way of displaying recent/opened files and files from current directories as it was before. 

I personally consider both distinct old and new Quick Open as different functionalities that can be further developed separately as a different means to conveniently open files (The look and feel matters often the most, even though it is just opening files). Lately I have been using fsearch more often as a kind-of-replacement for old Quick Open functionality.

I understand that kate has menu entry for recent files. 

PS. I uploaded images first. As an answer: Yes. Tool-view is narrow in sent Suggested-place picture, but it can be resized to half-to-half with document etc.
Comment 8 Waqar Ahmed 2021-05-06 21:32:49 UTC
> manual searching through the list of unsorted files, imho, doesn't make sense and is harder

Because this is not meant to do what you want. Quick open is not meant for browsing files. The usage should be
- Open quick open 
- type a few letters to filter the list to get to the file you want and press enter

That's it. That's all it is meant for and nothing more. 

There's one additional thing in there, if you have some files open, they will always be at the top of the list when quick-open opens.

> In a vast project, it could be hard to orientate in paths without prefixes

That I believe is not true. Here's why:

You have a project in /home/user/projects/Kate with 100000 files. What gets stripped: "/home/user/projects". That is stripped for all files because it is common among them. Nothing else will be stripped. This results in reduced noise and I believe easier to read path because you have removed the redundant information. 

Again, this is not a file browser. The paths are useful if you have files with similar names, type "Cmake", it will show you a lot of different cmake files with different paths so that you can select the one you want. 

You can additionally do filtering by path if you remember the path. "add/cmk" will give you files from addons/ in kate project.