[digiKam-users] Suggested UX improvement: Empty trash

[Thomas D]

Hi,

Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:

1. Find and click Trash in folder tree

2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)

3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not "Empty Trash"?)

4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty Trash"? which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty trash.

The workflow can be improved by making the following possible:

1. Right click on Trash

2. Select Empty Trash

This is both much simpler and less confusing for the user. And it is fewer clicks and much less cognitive load.

Hope you will implement this.

BR

Thomas

[Remco Viëtor]

On mardi 30 juin 2020 16:59:06 CEST Thomas D wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:
> 1. Find and click Trash in folder tree
> 2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)
> 3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not
> "Empty Trash"?)
> 4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items
> permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty Trash"?
> which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty
> trash.
>
>

So it's a bit harder to permanently remove files. That's *good* as it is an
unrecoverable action, and if deleting files is too easy, it's too easy to lose
unreplaceble images.

And if you are sure you want to delete images, use <shift>-<del>, which
bypasses the thrash and removes the files immediately.

Remco

Le 30/06/2020 à 17:23, Remco Viëtor a écrit :

> So it's a bit harder to permanently remove files. That's *good* as it is an
> unrecoverable action, and if deleting files is too easy, it's too easy to lose
> unreplaceble images.

if you fear to lose things, make an other copy (like I do).

trash is a nuisance, specially with large files

>
> And if you are sure you want to delete images, use <shift>-<del>, which
> bypasses the thrash and removes the files immediately.
>

is it possible to have it as default.

thanks
jdd


--
http://dodin.org

[digikam-2]

On Tue, 30 Jun 2020 17:23:45 +0200
Remco Viëtor <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> And if you are sure you want to delete images, use <shift>-<del>,
> which bypasses the thrash and removes the files immediately.
>

Just learned something:

Make sure to never use the <shift>-<del>

I like the trash :) it gives a opportunity to look again before
loosing my "wish was a masterpiece" images.

BTW, it's not just the images that get deleted but also the
various sidecars...

--
sknahT

vyS

[Dougie Nisbet]

I found this a mild irritation when I first started using digiKam ( http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digiKam-users-Changing-location-of-dtrash-directory-td4709691.html ) as I have scripts that parse my image directory and as far as I can tell, it's not possible to relocate the .dtrash directory. I get round it by using a wrapper script that does an rm -rf /store/media/images/.dtrash before starting digiKam and it never seems to do any harm.

Dougie

On 30/06/2020 15:59, Thomas D wrote:

Hi,

Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:

1. Find and click Trash in folder tree

2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)

3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not "Empty Trash"?)

4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty Trash"? which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty trash.

The workflow can be improved by making the following possible:

1. Right click on Trash

2. Select Empty Trash

This is both much simpler and less confusing for the user. And it is fewer clicks and much less cognitive load.

Hope you will implement this.

BR

Thomas

[Thomas D]

Another UX problem with Trash:

When opening the trash it has three action buttons:

- Undo

- Restore

- Delete

Apparently, Undo and Restore does the same thing? Or at least I havent figured out what the difference is.

There are no pop-up hints to explain the difference. If these buttons really do the same thing, there should be only one button.

Another confusing thing: Right-clicking an image in the Trash offers no Richt click menu. I would expect a menu to occur with options: "Restore" and "Delete permanently". This follows what most modern OS do in their desktop interface.

One more thing: Trash offers no "file size" column. Nor does it show a total size of elements in Trash. Why not? These are extremely valuable information and something the user wants to know most of the time. It could be shown in the Status bar.

Den tir. 30. jun. 2020 kl. 18.09 skrev Dougie Nisbet <[hidden email]>:

I found this a mild irritation when I first started using digiKam ( http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digiKam-users-Changing-location-of-dtrash-directory-td4709691.html ) as I have scripts that parse my image directory and as far as I can tell, it's not possible to relocate the .dtrash directory. I get round it by using a wrapper script that does an rm -rf /store/media/images/.dtrash before starting digiKam and it never seems to do any harm.

Dougie

On 30/06/2020 15:59, Thomas D wrote:

Hi,

Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:

1. Find and click Trash in folder tree

2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)

3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not "Empty Trash"?)

4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty Trash"? which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty trash.

The workflow can be improved by making the following possible:

1. Right click on Trash

2. Select Empty Trash

This is both much simpler and less confusing for the user. And it is fewer clicks and much less cognitive load.

Hope you will implement this.

BR

Thomas

[Maik Qualmann]

The "Undo" function restore the last deletion process, regardless of whether
you last deleted 1 or thousands of files. Another "Undo" the next deletion
process, etc. The "Restore" function only affects the files selected in the
list view. You can see the number of entries in the trash in the status bar at
the bottom left or if you have activated the item counter for the album view.
No further changes to the trash are currently planned .. it's just a trash...

Maik

Am Donnerstag, 2. Juli 2020, 16:33:13 CEST schrieb Thomas D:

> Another UX problem with Trash:
> When opening the trash it has three action buttons:
> - Undo
> - Restore
> - Delete
>
> Apparently, Undo and Restore does the same thing? Or at least I
> havent figured out what the difference is.
> There are no pop-up hints to explain the difference. If these buttons
> really do the same thing, there should be only one button.
>
>
> [image: image.png]
>
>
> Another confusing thing: Right-clicking an image in the Trash offers no
> Richt click menu. I would expect a menu to occur with options: "Restore"
> and "Delete permanently". This follows what most modern OS do in their
> desktop interface.
>
>
> One more thing: Trash offers no "file size" column. Nor does it show a
> total size of elements in Trash. Why not? These are extremely valuable
> information and something the user wants to know most of the time. It could
> be shown in the Status bar.
>
> Den tir. 30. jun. 2020 kl. 18.09 skrev Dougie Nisbet <[hidden email]>:
> > I found this a mild irritation when I first started using digiKam (
> > http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digiKam-users-Changing-location-of-dt
> > rash-directory-td4709691.html ) as I have scripts that parse my image
> > directory and as far as I can tell, it's not possible to relocate the
> > .dtrash directory. I get round it by using a wrapper script that does an
> > rm -rf /store/media/images/.dtrash before starting digiKam and it never
> > seems to do any harm.
> >
> > Dougie
> >
> > On 30/06/2020 15:59, Thomas D wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:
> > 1. Find and click Trash in folder tree
> > 2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)
> > 3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not
> > "Empty Trash"?)
> > 4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items
> > permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty
> > Trash"?
> > which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty
> > trash.
> >
> >
> > The workflow can be improved by making the following possible:
> >
> > 1. Right click on Trash
> > 2. Select Empty Trash
> >
> > This is both much simpler and less confusing for the user. And it is fewer
> > clicks and much less cognitive load.
> >
> > Hope you will implement this.
> >
> > BR
> > Thomas

[Thomas D]

Wow. That is definitely confusing.

May I suggest that the Undo button be removed from Trash and then only show the Restore button there. Instead have the Undo action available via Edit menu (like most common applications) and have the Undo action be available in the entire application via shortcut Ctrl+Z (like most common applications).

Hope you will consider this.

PS. I am aware that I have posted a several suggestions for improvements to the user experience the last few days.

I am not a C++ programmer at a level at which I can contribute directly to the digikam codebase with patches, etc. However, I do think I can help quite a bit improving the UI/UX.

I hope you take this as a well-intentioned help to improve digikam as a product.

I think digikam is an awesome product. And as an amateur photographer, I love that it is available. I have used digikam for at least12 years and I love it.

Den fre. 3. jul. 2020 kl. 05.55 skrev Maik Qualmann <[hidden email]>:

The "Undo" function restore the last deletion process, regardless of whether
you last deleted 1 or thousands of files. Another "Undo" the next deletion
process, etc. The "Restore" function only affects the files selected in the
list view. You can see the number of entries in the trash in the status bar at
the bottom left or if you have activated the item counter for the album view.
No further changes to the trash are currently planned .. it's just a trash...

Maik

Am Donnerstag, 2. Juli 2020, 16:33:13 CEST schrieb Thomas D:
> Another UX problem with Trash:
> When opening the trash it has three action buttons:
> - Undo
> - Restore
> - Delete
>
> Apparently, Undo and Restore does the same thing? Or at least I
> havent figured out what the difference is.
> There are no pop-up hints to explain the difference. If these buttons
> really do the same thing, there should be only one button.
>
>
> [image: image.png]
>
>
> Another confusing thing: Right-clicking an image in the Trash offers no
> Richt click menu. I would expect a menu to occur with options: "Restore"
> and "Delete permanently". This follows what most modern OS do in their
> desktop interface.
>
>
> One more thing: Trash offers no "file size" column. Nor does it show a
> total size of elements in Trash. Why not? These are extremely valuable
> information and something the user wants to know most of the time. It could
> be shown in the Status bar.
>
> Den tir. 30. jun. 2020 kl. 18.09 skrev Dougie Nisbet <[hidden email]>:
> > I found this a mild irritation when I first started using digiKam (
> > http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digiKam-users-Changing-location-of-dt
> > rash-directory-td4709691.html ) as I have scripts that parse my image
> > directory and as far as I can tell, it's not possible to relocate the
> > .dtrash directory. I get round it by using a wrapper script that does an
> > rm -rf /store/media/images/.dtrash before starting digiKam and it never
> > seems to do any harm.
> >
> > Dougie
> >
> > On 30/06/2020 15:59, Thomas D wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:
> > 1. Find and click Trash in folder tree
> > 2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)
> > 3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not
> > "Empty Trash"?)
> > 4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items
> > permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty
> > Trash"?
> > which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty
> > trash.
> >
> >
> > The workflow can be improved by making the following possible:
> >
> > 1. Right click on Trash
> > 2. Select Empty Trash
> >
> > This is both much simpler and less confusing for the user. And it is fewer
> > clicks and much less cognitive load.
> >
> > Hope you will implement this.
> >
> > BR
> > Thomas

[Gilles Caulier-4]

Thanks Thomas for your suggestions.

Please, for all tips, improvements, feedback, please use bugzilla
instead of a mailing list. Bugzilla is safe in time, nothing lost. All
files are public with the complete history and we can assign tasks
easily to future students.

For all code contributions, we use the gitlab PR mechanism now, which
is very easy to use and very powerful to review code and integrate.

Best

Gilles Caulier

Le ven. 3 juil. 2020 à 09:22, Thomas D <[hidden email]> a écrit :

>
> Wow. That is definitely confusing.
>
> May I suggest that the Undo button be removed from Trash and then only show the Restore button there. Instead have the Undo action available via Edit menu (like most common applications) and have the Undo action be available in the entire application via shortcut Ctrl+Z (like most common applications).
>
> Hope you will consider this.
>
> PS. I am aware that I have posted a several suggestions for improvements to the user experience the last few days.
> I am not a C++ programmer at a level at which I can contribute directly to the digikam codebase with patches, etc. However, I do think I can help quite a bit improving the UI/UX.
> I hope you take this as a well-intentioned help to improve digikam as a product.
> I think digikam is an awesome product. And as an amateur photographer, I love that it is available. I have used digikam for at least12 years and I love it.
>
>
>
> Den fre. 3. jul. 2020 kl. 05.55 skrev Maik Qualmann <[hidden email]>:
>>
>> The "Undo" function restore the last deletion process, regardless of whether
>> you last deleted 1 or thousands of files. Another "Undo" the next deletion
>> process, etc. The "Restore" function only affects the files selected in the
>> list view. You can see the number of entries in the trash in the status bar at
>> the bottom left or if you have activated the item counter for the album view.
>> No further changes to the trash are currently planned .. it's just a trash...
>>
>> Maik
>>
>> Am Donnerstag, 2. Juli 2020, 16:33:13 CEST schrieb Thomas D:
>> > Another UX problem with Trash:
>> > When opening the trash it has three action buttons:
>> > - Undo
>> > - Restore
>> > - Delete
>> >
>> > Apparently, Undo and Restore does the same thing? Or at least I
>> > havent figured out what the difference is.
>> > There are no pop-up hints to explain the difference. If these buttons
>> > really do the same thing, there should be only one button.
>> >
>> >
>> > [image: image.png]
>> >
>> >
>> > Another confusing thing: Right-clicking an image in the Trash offers no
>> > Richt click menu. I would expect a menu to occur with options: "Restore"
>> > and "Delete permanently". This follows what most modern OS do in their
>> > desktop interface.
>> >
>> >
>> > One more thing: Trash offers no "file size" column. Nor does it show a
>> > total size of elements in Trash. Why not? These are extremely valuable
>> > information and something the user wants to know most of the time. It could
>> > be shown in the Status bar.
>> >
>> > Den tir. 30. jun. 2020 kl. 18.09 skrev Dougie Nisbet <[hidden email]>:
>> > > I found this a mild irritation when I first started using digiKam (
>> > > http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digiKam-users-Changing-location-of-dt
>> > > rash-directory-td4709691.html ) as I have scripts that parse my image
>> > > directory and as far as I can tell, it's not possible to relocate the
>> > > .dtrash directory. I get round it by using a wrapper script that does an
>> > > rm -rf /store/media/images/.dtrash before starting digiKam and it never
>> > > seems to do any harm.
>> > >
>> > > Dougie
>> > >
>> > > On 30/06/2020 15:59, Thomas D wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Hi,
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:
>> > > 1. Find and click Trash in folder tree
>> > > 2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)
>> > > 3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not
>> > > "Empty Trash"?)
>> > > 4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items
>> > > permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty
>> > > Trash"?
>> > > which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty
>> > > trash.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > The workflow can be improved by making the following possible:
>> > >
>> > > 1. Right click on Trash
>> > > 2. Select Empty Trash
>> > >
>> > > This is both much simpler and less confusing for the user. And it is fewer
>> > > clicks and much less cognitive load.
>> > >
>> > > Hope you will implement this.
>> > >
>> > > BR
>> > > Thomas
>>
>>
>>
>>

[Maik Qualmann]

One more thought to the "Undo" in the edit menu. That would not really make sense at the moment. The user would expect that other actions, such as copying and moving items or adding tags, could be undo. The latter is not really easy to implement. Therefore, the "Undo" button in the trash is currently in good hands.

Maik

Gilles Caulier <[hidden email]> schrieb am Fr., 3. Juli 2020 10:21:

Thanks Thomas for your suggestions.

Please, for all tips, improvements, feedback, please use bugzilla
instead of a mailing list. Bugzilla is safe in time, nothing lost. All
files are public with the complete history and we can assign tasks
easily to future students.

For all code contributions, we use the gitlab PR mechanism now, which
is very easy to use and very powerful to review code and integrate.

Best

Gilles Caulier

Le ven. 3 juil. 2020 à 09:22, Thomas D <[hidden email]> a écrit :
>
> Wow. That is definitely confusing.
>
> May I suggest that the Undo button be removed from Trash and then only show the Restore button there. Instead have the Undo action available via Edit menu (like most common applications) and have the Undo action be available in the entire application via shortcut Ctrl+Z (like most common applications).
>
> Hope you will consider this.
>
> PS. I am aware that I have posted a several suggestions for improvements to the user experience the last few days.
> I am not a C++ programmer at a level at which I can contribute directly to the digikam codebase with patches, etc. However, I do think I can help quite a bit improving the UI/UX.
> I hope you take this as a well-intentioned help to improve digikam as a product.
> I think digikam is an awesome product. And as an amateur photographer, I love that it is available. I have used digikam for at least12 years and I love it.
>
>
>
> Den fre. 3. jul. 2020 kl. 05.55 skrev Maik Qualmann <[hidden email]>:
>>
>> The "Undo" function restore the last deletion process, regardless of whether
>> you last deleted 1 or thousands of files. Another "Undo" the next deletion
>> process, etc. The "Restore" function only affects the files selected in the
>> list view. You can see the number of entries in the trash in the status bar at
>> the bottom left or if you have activated the item counter for the album view.
>> No further changes to the trash are currently planned .. it's just a trash...
>>
>> Maik
>>
>> Am Donnerstag, 2. Juli 2020, 16:33:13 CEST schrieb Thomas D:
>> > Another UX problem with Trash:
>> > When opening the trash it has three action buttons:
>> > - Undo
>> > - Restore
>> > - Delete
>> >
>> > Apparently, Undo and Restore does the same thing? Or at least I
>> > havent figured out what the difference is.
>> > There are no pop-up hints to explain the difference. If these buttons
>> > really do the same thing, there should be only one button.
>> >
>> >
>> > [image: image.png]
>> >
>> >
>> > Another confusing thing: Right-clicking an image in the Trash offers no
>> > Richt click menu. I would expect a menu to occur with options: "Restore"
>> > and "Delete permanently". This follows what most modern OS do in their
>> > desktop interface.
>> >
>> >
>> > One more thing: Trash offers no "file size" column. Nor does it show a
>> > total size of elements in Trash. Why not? These are extremely valuable
>> > information and something the user wants to know most of the time. It could
>> > be shown in the Status bar.
>> >
>> > Den tir. 30. jun. 2020 kl. 18.09 skrev Dougie Nisbet <[hidden email]>:
>> > > I found this a mild irritation when I first started using digiKam (
>> > > http://digikam.1695700.n4.nabble.com/digiKam-users-Changing-location-of-dt
>> > > rash-directory-td4709691.html ) as I have scripts that parse my image
>> > > directory and as far as I can tell, it's not possible to relocate the
>> > > .dtrash directory. I get round it by using a wrapper script that does an
>> > > rm -rf /store/media/images/.dtrash before starting digiKam and it never
>> > > seems to do any harm.
>> > >
>> > > Dougie
>> > >
>> > > On 30/06/2020 15:59, Thomas D wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Hi,
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > Currently, it takes 4 clicks to empty Trash:
>> > > 1. Find and click Trash in folder tree
>> > > 2. Find and click Delete button on the opposite side of the screen(!)
>> > > 3. Now a pop-up action menu is shown, click Delete all here. (Why not
>> > > "Empty Trash"?)
>> > > 4. You are now prompted "Are you sure you want to delete ALL items
>> > > permanently?" (Oh no! Sounds scary - again, why not just say "Empty
>> > > Trash"?
>> > > which is a well established metafor on many systems). Click Yes to empty
>> > > trash.
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > The workflow can be improved by making the following possible:
>> > >
>> > > 1. Right click on Trash
>> > > 2. Select Empty Trash
>> > >
>> > > This is both much simpler and less confusing for the user. And it is fewer
>> > > clicks and much less cognitive load.
>> > >
>> > > Hope you will implement this.
>> > >
>> > > BR
>> > > Thomas
>>
>>
>>
>>