In the folder view, when I point to an icon there is
a + or - sign next to it. What does that mean?
SuSE 11.3, KDE 4.4.4
Cheers,
Ake
Add to selection
remove from selection
In kde one click will open a folder - to select we would normally use Ctrl and click
Now with the + - you can click and select/unselect
when + you can click it to open the folder
when - you don’t have permission to open, or the open failed. If you get a - and should be able to open you may be able to open by just pressing the enter key.
I don’t think this is correct
I would be a bit stronger. This is absolutely incorrect. It is the selection feature
I may be wrong, I originally though it was add remove selection but then I noted it had no bearing what was/wasn’t selected. Then I noticed that files owned by another person &/or root would have a ‘-’ on them when i hovered over them, and on my files sometimes instead of click to open the folders would change to ‘-’ and I would have to either click another and then go back to the one with the ‘-’ to retry open folder or I could press return right after clicking the folder to open it. Looked for another explanation and found none so assumed mine was right.
Just browsed some other user folders, amongst which Documents, nothing like that happening here. Not in KDE 4.4 not in KDE 4.5.
Ok, so what does the + - mean and how is it supposed to work? I use KDE 4.3.5 on 11.2-32bit
Compare it to pressing the Ctrl key and mouse to select folders and files in windows.
In a folder click +'s of some files and folders. Now Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V etc, dragging and dropping etc. works for the selected files. To deselect, click -. Works the same in the Folder View widget, at least on the KDE’s I have running here.
Didn’t we already explain?
OK, I’ll tally it up as a poorly conceived idea. Seems Icon size and view mode affect it’s operation immensely. Using medium and large icons now works the way you say. small icon and details list react the way I have found. The slider at the bottom for adjusting icon size also changes the behavior of click. It would seem that the hot spot area the plus and minus occupy while showing vs the non-hotspot area of the icon or list detail makes a big difference and this detail is not documented. I’ve always found the +/- an annoyance. You go to open a folder and as you move over it a green plus shows you click expecting the folder to open and presto it doesn’t and instead you get a red - and have to click some other folder or press enter to get the proper result.
Ok, I am wrong to use dolphin, once more it’s back to the CLI to avoid useless bells and whistles. If I want to select/deselect these are available other ways.
It’s not poorly conceived but it is incomplete in your version of KDE. In KDE3, you could select files by opening a dialogue and entering a match to the filename. This is rather long-winded and so the + and - were substituted in KDE4 to enable you to select/deselect individual folders/files. I think you will find that Ctrl-A will select all folders/files but that is all that was implemented in your version. So you can select individual folders/files or you can select all and then deselect the ones you don’t want if that is quicker than selecting them individually. Further options to select/deselect groups of folders/files will be introduced in coming releases.
It is true, if you click the +/- signs of a folder, it does not open.
In KDE4 4.5’s Folder View widget, there’s even one more little icon. Hovering it will open a new plasma view of the content of the folder concerned.
This business of generations focused on the next best gadgets! I left windose as my primary OS because of loss of functionality for more eye candy hype. Linux was supposed to be about choice, not having gadgets and flair and functional loss rammed down my throat.
Now if I upgrade from 4.3.5 to 4.5 I will have to contend with KDE taking me farther away from what I want to do than ever before. If I dont leave the mouse out of the filebox It will open new folder views all on it’s own. Thanks for the heads up! I at least know that if/when I can no longer work with 11.2 KDE, I will need a new desktop environment and everything KDE must be backed up and saved as non-KDE starting now.
Frankly, those comments lack imagination and are reminiscent of the few kde3 die-hard users you can find here.
functional loss
How exactly is having more functions available to you - a loss?
You are such a Drama Queen.
The progress of kde4 is nothing but spectacular.
I’m not against progress but I am against exchanging flash for interfering behavior. I do feel the effects of dropped packages because ‘someone’ doesn’t think they’re of value anymore.
- Comments lack Imagination? I can dream up some pretty wild and fancy things too but also understand when such an addition may or will interfere with practical operation.
- a KDE 3 die hard? Un-fair, I left KDE3.5 for KDE 4.2 then 4.3.1 then 4.3.5 and the accumulative losses to my functionality are becoming progressively worrisome.
- more functions = loss? Yes when they make me take quite a few more steps to do what I was able to do.
- Drama Queen? Really! just because I can see on more than one level with broad perspective over a tunnel vision.
- Spectacular KDE 4?
…a) Dolphin quit doing realtime updates which interfered with copy, move, file opens, from 4.0 to 4.4 when they finally restored proper operation which was working in KDE 3.5
…b) /- and now hover-auto-open added in Dolphin over top of icons to aid in selection and navigation are not the problem when they work and ARE documented so people know of the change. They are the problem when they can’t be turned off for those times when they just get in the way.
…c) Sometime before KDE 3.5 there used to be a system browse in the KDE menu which I used to use a lot with it’s cascading lists but now it’s nowhere to be found.
…d) With KDE 4.3.1 I had Kapplaucher that would bring up the KDE apps and Gnome apps right from the start menu. It disappeared with KDE 4.3.5.
…e) Use to be able in KDE 4.3.1 to switch menu between Classic and modern by right clicking lizard-start-button. Now in 4.3.5 I switched to classic view from modern and the feature to switch back is gone.
…f) With KDE 4.2.0 I didn’t have to worry about moving windows near the top or screen edges. Now I must be very careful or whatever I am working on closes and I am back to the KDE log-in Screen (no messages or errors report in logs but when I was trying to provide an example video so MalcolmLewis and oldcpu could help me, the video recorded up to the the crash event as an incomplete video which still plays)
…g) Click minimize on one open window and poof all windows minimize or sometimes close since 4.3.1. Solution: turn off mouse gestures, plasmoids, desktop effects, screensavers …
…h) Since installing dropbox, the KDE background displays, then screen goes black for 2 - 5 seconds then restores (no errors report in logs) specify don’t start dropbox at start-up doesn’t stop this new behavior, removing dropbox also doesn’t help.
…i) Since installing xvidecap, upon shutdown of X, get the old green screen rather my normal KDE background screen for 2-5 seconds then KDE background restores until shutdown completes.
…j) With KDE 3.5 I use to use koffice (kwrite, kspread, kpresenter …) and thank my lucky stars I still have a machine I can use to recover such files to port into openoffice. Now someone said where I can get it but it didn’t want to install and I frankly need more time to work it through.
…k) Wow! we can have a desktop fancy cube rather than a familiar app-panel at the bottom.
…l) Wow the newer version of KDE apps don’t have a working help menu item. It’s there, and it does give some help on some apps. But as forum members are so eager to explain, Programmers of today are coders who put little to no relevance on documentation wanting to concentrate on coding. They say people should be going to the web or forums to learn how to use an app.Tell me how hard is it change __writemessage ( nohelp); to __shellcmd (*“http://<helpsite-url>”); ??
Loss - an ability that was able to be done with ease complicated by bells and whistles that interfere with those basic features.
It sounds to me like your install is flaky or you have hardware compatibility issues
If you use Gnome do all issues disappear?
I thought of a flaky install as bad behavior increased. I have multiple PC’s in service with openSUSE 11.2 KDE 4.3.5 they all have different hardware and most of the noted behavior exist on all:
…a) Dolphin quit doing realtime updates exists on all machines with KDE 4.3.5 and the KDE site notes it is a problem with pre KDE 4.4
…b) */- in Dolphin does interfere with smooth ability to open folders if icons are not made large enough to have a clickable area outside the +/- trigger zone.
…c) a system browse in the KDE menu is no longer available
…d) Kapplauncher can’t even find it in YAST on KDE 4.3.5.
…e) switch menu between Classic and modern by right clicking lizard-start-button may well be a corrupted kmenu as it took longer for it to eventually
disappear on another machine where it did switch back and forth for about a month before it was gone.
…f) Un-expected logouts when moving windows near screen edges started on the machine with the ati-radeon after upgrade to KDE 4.3.5
…g) Click minimize on one open window and poof all windows minimize or sometimes close since 4.3.1. happens with ati-radeon, nvidia but not the Intel video chipset under 4.3.1 but the KDE 4.3.5 it only happens with ati-radeon
…h) dropbox affecting KDE background display I have no clue what it changed << Install problem?
…i) xvidecap, affecting background at shutdown seems to be a fight between what I set and what the default setting was. << Install problem?
…j) loss of use koffice (kwrite, kspread, kpresenter …) apparently got moved from mainstream to an alternate repo
…k) to have a desktop fancy cube rather than a familiar app-panel at the bottom does nothing for me.
…l) removal of working help from apps and to force people to go Internet bound when they have a quiry IMHO does nothing for a person who is away from the Internet and still needs to get a job done.
Actually a lot changes with Gnome.
…a) Nautilus updates display fine and does not interfere with copy, move, file opens
…b) */- is not present and does not interfere with folder/file operations
…c) Gnome doesn’t have and possibly will never have a system browse in the menu
…d) Gnome doesn’t have a gnoapplaucher that I know of
…e) Gnome doesn’t have switch menu between Classic and modern to my knowledge (at least not through it’s right click start Foot)
…f) Gnome doesn’t react badly to moving windows near screen edges
…g) Gnome doesn’t react badly when minimize on one open window
…h) dropbox doesn’t effect the background display with Gnome
…i) xvidecap while installed won’t run in Gnome but also doesn’t affect the shutdown background
…j) Gnome doesn’t have koffice
…k) Gnome is quite void of flashy’s but also doesn’t run many of my apps
…l) Gnome has a bad habit of making itself the default and restricting ability to KDE. Need to keep going into YAST ->display and changing gdm to kdm4 and I can live happy until I go into Gnome which changes it back to gdm
What is: a) Dolphin quit doing realtime updates, c) a system browse in the KDE menu is no longer available,
I have no issue with the other things you mention. And what do you mean about dropbox. I’m using it and it works perfectly
The issue with Dolphin which KDE team says they fixed for 4.4.0 and beyond was this:
a) Sometimes when you edit file ‘A’ in an editor and it creates a back-up of ‘A’ and you immediately try to open file ‘B’ which was right beside it (before file ‘A’ was worked on), the file area will still be showing how it was. You then click on file ‘B’ which is showing on the display and one time you get file ‘B’, another time you get a box popping up for te back-up copy of ‘A’ asking you to specify what program to use to open this file but the display still shows no back-up copy, and still another time it suddenly updates showeing the back-up copy and issues the same ‘how do i open this file’. The problem also affects when copying, moving, deleting large groups of files. One temporary fix was offered by KDE team to use the F5 key to force the update which does work 50% of the time. Another user actually got the bug addressed for KDE 4.4.0 after trying to move about 150 music files to a new location and when s/he pasted at the new location at files showed at size of 0 each and old location no longer had the files, so when I brought up my problem with them I was told it now fixed in KDE 4.4.0. It was a huge annoyance for me as I had over 45000 nutrient html pages to modify with similar changes but that due to varying positions couldn’t be modified by an automated process.
c) My KDE menu used to have a “browse-filesystem” entry which when clicked would show the root, home. Click root and another list would appear showing /bin /boot /etc … /var move above an item and another list would display the color coded contents of that folder and so on. Click a setting file and emacs would launch and open the file, Click an executable and either a terminal would open with the path/filespec sitting on the line for you to either complete or X-out or if an X-app it would execute. When I upgraded to KDE 3.5 this menu entry was no more.
When I am in Gnome and choose to start Dropbox (I don’t have it running all the time) I get a box in the center of the screen saying “Crash Handler - the application Dropbox x.xx.xx did not start” and lots of debug info. But in KDE I can start it fine.