New Dolphin location bar

[angelbruni]

I didn't know whether to create a discussion here or an issue.
Would it be possible to add support for the new location bar? If it is already possible, sorry in advance, but how would I go about it?

[tsujan]

I have no plan to add more app-specific codes to Kvantum. There are already many, most of which are workarounds for wrong hard-coded styles in KDE apps, and some for customization (like Transparent Dolphin view).

Apart from that, there's no guarantee that such codes last long. I know that they do in LXQt, as I'm the code maintainer of libfm-qt/pcmanfm-qt and care for backward compatibility. In KDE, they're usually short-lived.

So, the short answer is, let's wait and see what will happen in KDE.

[angelbruni]

I've researched a little more and noticed there are mixed opinions about this location bar, so indeed, it may or may not change.
I am personally one of the people that like this, so I hope it stays, and I hope if it stays then support comes to Kvantum for it with hopefully not much hardcoding needed, I don't really know how Qt/KDE's Qt works.

Thank you very much for the clarification :D

[tsujan]

Honestly, I didn't understand what you meant by "supporting" it. Could you please be more specific? Also, I should first see it here. It isn't in the stable branch yet; is it? I installed Dolphin 24.12.3 but couldn't see it.

Kvantum supports dark tool-bars with light themes, and I'm not sure how it works with light-and-dark themes. If it has a correct style code, it shouldn't create a problem but, nowadays, you can hardly find a correct style code in KDE.

[angelbruni]

I do indeed have the 24.12.3 version too


For context, if enabling Kvantum, it looks like this:

(I realised now that my opinion may be highly subjective, but I don't think the new location bar fits with the rest of the toolbar in some Kvantum themes.)

For clarification, by "supporting" I meant that it would be really cool if we could add texture to the buttons, similar but not the same as the connected toolbar buttons. I don't really have a better example :(, so I will attach the only one I could think of:

Now, I did some digging (using KvCurvesLight as example), which is why I took so long to get back to you, and realised that the hover texture of the location bar buttons is actually the focused state of itemview textures, and the separators are using splitter textures, I do admit that before I investigated this, I thought it just used colours and not actual textures, so this was a surprise to me, however, I don't think these textures fit with the location bar, and this may be some sort of fallback, but I could be wrong, like I said, I don't understand much of this but I am trying to be as helpful as possible, I apologise if my report looks confusing.

So, after acquiring this new knowledge on how textures are being chosen, my request changes to: could we (Kvantum theme developers) have the choice of using separate textures for the location bar and its buttons in case this new location bar does indeed stay?

I also don't think calling it the "Dolphin's location bar" is appropriate anymore, as I've realised Gwenview also makes use of it:

So, as far as I know, two applications are making use of this.

Thank you for replying again.

[tsujan]

however, I don't think these textures fit with the location bar

You're right.

This is just a small example of what I said below. QStyle has the parameter QStyle::PM_SplitterWidth, which is set by the style — Kvantum even has a setting for it (splitter_width) that can be changed by theme makers. The real value of this parameter is ignored here and a fixed width is given to those splitters — to say nothing of using splitters where nothing can be resized!

[tsujan]

OK, I compiled and installed dolphin-25.03.90. My guess was right: their style code is terrible:

Again and again, they assume that QStyle parameters should be the fixed values used in Breeze (or in some other elementary styles), ignoring the fact that they're parameters, not fixed, global values. I'm really tired of encountering this mistake in their codes.

Moreover, that "location bar" is sub-optimal. As soon as I click a button to the left, the right buttons disappear, such that there's no way to go forward by using them.

I'm afraid, I have no reason to waste my time by trying to compensate for this mess. It should be fixed by KDE devs — or they could assume that it's good as it is because it looks OK with Breeze.

I compare it with pcmanfm-qt's path buttons:

It's clean and practical. Its code doesn't force any style, such that it looks good with all styles. The user can easily go forward and backward by clicking its buttons, which are really buttons, not hand-made widgets with bad style codes.

[angelbruni]

I will check pcmanfm-qt as it seems to be fit for me too, but I have personally never used it. Thanks for sharing what KDE devs have done to Dolphin, it's a shame :(

[tsujan]

As you mentioned, it may be subjective :)

As a dev, I had to compensate for their many mistakes in Kvantum. So, I have the viewpoint of a dev who thinks he has right to be angry after seeing a never-ending series of bad codes ;)

[NickLion]

Don't waste your time on this new bar implementation, there is new MR in work:
https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/kio/-/merge_requests/1842

Current bar not just looks weird, but also very confusing, why icons before folder change its child — I can't understand.

[tsujan]

there is new MR in work

That might be good if they respect the widget's palette, instead of hard coding the usage of KDE's color schemes.