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would it be the WM's role to synchronize the terminal and the FM ? Purity is not everything. Usability is. KDE is architectured such that components can be em

by jraph 4y ago

would it be the WM's role to synchronize the terminal and the FM ? Purity is not everything. Usability is. KDE is architectured such that components can be embedded everywhere (kparts), it's one of its strength and it's also sound. Its own kind or purity. Also Qt is really good at tabs and pane, I'm happy my WM doesn't concern itself with the content of my windows.

sph 4y ago
The goal of being able to embed apps everywhere reminds me of COM/OLE and ActiveX. No, thanks. Again, and this time less sarcastically, if embedding is the goal, why can't I embed an email client and only the terminal is an approved extension? Seems awfully limiting.
- rolenthedeep 4y ago
  Sure, I'll bite. Embedding a terminal in a file manager solves a particular problem. It synchronizes the working directory of the terminal with the directory open in the file explorer. This is a pretty common problem to have, and there certainly are other solutions to it, but embedding a terminal within the explorer is a good solution for a lot of use cases. It's convenient, and it makes sense for a program that manages your files to enable you to more directly manage files with a terminal prompt. It doesn't really make sense for a file manager to embed an email client because email doesn't usually involve file management. Needing to send an email from a particular directory isn't a problem that anybody has. Could you synchronize a terminal window and a file explorer window? I'm sure you could with a bit of effort. You could also set up a whole tile manager and dock those two windows together. For people who don't want to do all that, or don't use or don't like tiling, or who just want to run chmod +x on the file they downloaded, putting a terminal in the file manager is a perfectly valid solution to a relatively minor inconvenience. It even has a hotkey to close it when you don't want your window spoiled by a horrible subframe.
  - allisdust 4y ago
    This is a common enough problem that Windows power toys used to have a way to open terminal from explorer right click menu. Very useful functionality.
    - rolenthedeep 4y ago
      Shift -> right click a directory and you get a context menu item to open powershell. You can registry hack to make it cmd instead. Been part of my normal work flow since windows 7 I think?
- veidr 4y ago
  It reminds me of OpenDoc, which, for the extremely limited set of tech demos that worked (e.g. putting the BBEdit text editor into any app that edited text) was awesome and flabbergasting when I saw it. Just because it failed and nobody has so far ever succeeded in delivering on that concept in a usable form doesn’t me we should just give up and go back to living in caves. It also doesn’t mean that developers who deliver on that only in limited-but-useful ways should be dismissed because they also failed to deliver the comprehensive universal successful implementation of it.
- unionpivo 4y ago
  You can embed an email client, if you want/need. But it makes sense to embed terminal, since you often/sometimes want to run some command in that directory/folder. I never had a need to run mail in specific folder.

by jraph 4y ago

sph 4y ago

The goal of being able to embed apps everywhere reminds me of COM/OLE and ActiveX. No, thanks. Again, and this time less sarcastically, if embedding is the goal, why can't I embed an email client and only the terminal is an approved extension? Seems awfully limiting.

rolenthedeep 4y ago
Sure, I'll bite. Embedding a terminal in a file manager solves a particular problem. It synchronizes the working directory of the terminal with the directory open in the file explorer. This is a pretty common problem to have, and there certainly are other solutions to it, but embedding a terminal within the explorer is a good solution for a lot of use cases. It's convenient, and it makes sense for a program that manages your files to enable you to more directly manage files with a terminal prompt. It doesn't really make sense for a file manager to embed an email client because email doesn't usually involve file management. Needing to send an email from a particular directory isn't a problem that anybody has. Could you synchronize a terminal window and a file explorer window? I'm sure you could with a bit of effort. You could also set up a whole tile manager and dock those two windows together. For people who don't want to do all that, or don't use or don't like tiling, or who just want to run chmod +x on the file they downloaded, putting a terminal in the file manager is a perfectly valid solution to a relatively minor inconvenience. It even has a hotkey to close it when you don't want your window spoiled by a horrible subframe.
- allisdust 4y ago
  This is a common enough problem that Windows power toys used to have a way to open terminal from explorer right click menu. Very useful functionality.
  - rolenthedeep 4y ago
    Shift -> right click a directory and you get a context menu item to open powershell. You can registry hack to make it cmd instead. Been part of my normal work flow since windows 7 I think?
veidr 4y ago
It reminds me of OpenDoc, which, for the extremely limited set of tech demos that worked (e.g. putting the BBEdit text editor into any app that edited text) was awesome and flabbergasting when I saw it. Just because it failed and nobody has so far ever succeeded in delivering on that concept in a usable form doesn’t me we should just give up and go back to living in caves. It also doesn’t mean that developers who deliver on that only in limited-but-useful ways should be dismissed because they also failed to deliver the comprehensive universal successful implementation of it.
unionpivo 4y ago
You can embed an email client, if you want/need. But it makes sense to embed terminal, since you often/sometimes want to run some command in that directory/folder. I never had a need to run mail in specific folder.