KubuntuFileTransferDialogue

Kubuntu File Transfer Dialogue

Introduction

Improve the file transfer (copy) dialogue in Kubuntu.

Rationale

When the user copies files and folders in the network, a progress dialogue shows up. Currently, this dialogue (kio_uiserver) works with one dialogue for each file transfer. It should have one window for all files currently being or which have been transferred. Also, he should be able to pause and resume downloads.

Scope and Use Cases

  • A user starts their computer and KDE session manager automatically loads up Konqueror, Kate and KWord and all the documents that were open when they logged off get loaded again, this opens a dozen file transfer dialogues. It should just be one.
  • A user started the download of a huge file but has to shutdown the computer before the download is finished. He should have an option to resume the download later.

Design

The file transfer dialogue can be called by different applications. When the user paused a download, he should not be forced to go back to that application to resume it, but should be able to do it in a central place, the system tray.

When something is currently downloaded, the system tray icon is animated. When clicking it, a detailed list of all downloads that are currently performed is shown. By default, finished downloads are shown as well, but the user can change this option. The list should not exceed a number of 20 items and items should be removed after three days.

For each active transfer, a progress indicator, source, destination and status are shown. Right of the progress bar, there is a button to cancel the download. Next to the status, there is a button to pause. It changes to resume if the download is paused.

When a download is finished, the progress indicator as well as the pause/resume button is removed. Instead of the cancel button, there is an option to open the destination.

downloads.png

In the default setting, the downloads icon is permanently docked into the system tray to allow the user to access finished downloads and open them. If the user prefers not to see finished downloads, the icon disappears as soon as all downloads are complete (that includes that none of the downloads is paused). In the default setting, however, it also disappears when there is no more item in the list.

The option to show and hide finished downloads is accessible via the system tray icon's right context menu and will be added to the file transfer options in Konqueror's Settings->Configure Konqueror->Behaviour dialogue.

Implementation

Modify the existing code in kdelibs' uiserver to use the user interface described above.

CategorySpec

KGet Suggestion

May I suggest that perhaps Kget could suite your goals when improved with support for transfering data from one place on your hard drive to another, and or with kopete and koffice... save/open support? Especially in konqueror downloading or transfering a file is basically the same. Tabs in Kget could show different things like: downloads, saves, uploads, torrents... A lot of work has already been done in Kget, it integrates nice with Konqueror, has a clean interface and already has a system tray icon. Kget for KDE 4 will even have torrent support. It's just a thought so delete it if it won't suite the goals. At the moment Kget only shows downloads and uploads and will support torrent support, it has an animated icon and the popups can be cusotmised. For more information: http://kget.sourceforge.net/ . Terracotta.

KubuntuFileTransferDialogue (last edited 2008-08-06 16:35:30 by localhost)