First of all, hello Planet KDE!

Most readers of Planet KDE probably think that Dolphin development is done almost exclusively by a single person. I figured that starting my own blog might be a good way to change this. I’m involved mainly with bug triaging, bug fixing, and implementing unit tests to reduce the risk of regressions. Maybe some readers will find these topics interesting 🙂

I hope that my blog can make some potential new contributors realize that working on software quality is a very interesting and rewarding thing to do, and that any help in this area is welcome in every part of KDE (or any other free software project). I believe that there are many users who would like to contribute to the software they use, but don’t know a good place to start. Actually, I was in the same situation some time ago: I had used KDE for a couple of years before I got involved in a Bugsquad event in 2008. After that, I quickly started doing bug triage on my own and fixed more and more bugs myself.

You might wonder why Dolphin is the application I chose to work on. Well, there are several reasons: First of all, a file manager is an application that most people need. Knowing that a large number of users can benefit from any improvements I make is a big motivating factor for me. Moreover, the code is IMHO very nicely written, and the maintainer is always helpful and fun to work with.

Dolphin got a new view engine recently, which made working with the code even more pleasant than before. I would like to thank all users who tested it, provided feedback and reported bugs. This help is crucial for us because Dolphin can be used in so many different ways that it is impossible for a small group of developers to test everything. The most serious regressions could be fixed before the KDE 4.8.0 release thanks to the brave users who tested beta (or even self-compiled pre-beta) versions. Since then, even more users helped us to identify many more small annoyances, many of which will be gone in KDE 4.8.1. Here is a list of all Dolphin bugs that have been fixed since the KDE 4.8.0 release:

Do not make items invisible when switching previews on or off in some situations. Fixes bug 291841. See Git commit cc8f5b4.

Make sure that Control+click toggles the selection state. Fixes bug 292250. See Git commit 84a9cc4.

Check if the shell process in the Terminal Panel is still running before trying to kill it. Prevents unwanted killing of other processes. Fixes bug 286367. See Git commit 7dfe363.

Handle folder names containing special characters, like Space, correctly in the Folders Panel. Fixes bug 291781. See Git commit 80d9bfe.

Fix crash when opening a new tab if “Split view” is enabled by default. Fixes bug 292470. See Git commit 5d22b71.

Re-enable dropping items on tabs. Fixes bug 292505. See Git commit e3fc04a.

Mark items as unhovered after copying them via drag and drop. Fixes bug 292501. See Git commit bc80a99.

Respect the user’s “Natural sorting” setting. Fixes bug 292270. See Git commit 803f50b.

Fix possible crash in Compact View if the view height is smaller than the item height. Fixes bug 292816. See Git commit f5ecaee.

Fix drag and drop issues with non-local URLs. Fixes bugs 292821 and 292355. See Git commit fdc2058.

Synchronize view-mode settings before the settings dialog gets opened. Fixes bug 292698. See Git commit 02e3235.

Respect a change of the user’s “Home directory” setting also in existing tabs. Fixes bug 291043. See Git commit d03d06a.

Update the zoom-slider in the statusbar after changing the zoom-level in the settings. See Git commit 47b4e1d.

Implement “sort by path” and sorting by other sort roles that were still missing. Fixes bug 292941. See Git commit 86a4918.

Fix keyboard navigation issue that occurred when Home or End and then an arrow key were pressed. See Git commit 999234a.

Do not crash when opening a new tab while a tool tip is shown. Fixes bug 278302. See Git commit d80f35e.

Fix an integer overflow, which could cause problems when “Sort by size” is enabled. Fixes bug 293086. See Git commit e196f06.

Show expansion toggles in the Folders Panel also for directories on ISO images. Fixes bug 292642. See Git commit 6f65a17.

When hovering an item with the mouse, show its size in the status bar. Fixes bug 292687. See Git commit 73e4324.

Show the value “Unknown” for the item-count only after it has been verified. Fixes bug 291823. See Git commit d9bc83e.

When entering a directory which is not shown in the Folders Panel yet, show it by expanding its parents, but do not expand the directory itself. See Git commit 89082ca.

Use the whole available width of the icon area for previews of landscape images. Fixes bug 293268. See Git commit 0ade2b6.

Fix the issue that decreasing the window size may result in an endless loop. Fixes bug 293318. See Git commit 81034de.

Animation fixes: Don’t start animations that result in overlapped items. Fixes bug 289238. See Git commit 84bb46a.

Compact view: Don’t hide items at the bottom when grouping is turned on. Fixes bug 291640. See Git commit 44b8e12.

Drag and drop: Adjust the destination if the item is no directory or desktop-file. Fixes bug 293511. See Git commit 13d975a.

Details view: Draw parent-branches. Fixes bug 290276. See Git commit e505c3a.

Folders Panel: Use the whole width as selection region. Fixes bug 294111. See Git commit 98d98f7.

Prevent showing tooltips when dragging items into another Dolphin window. Fixes bug 294533. See Git commit 72fe031.

Don’t crash when switching to the details-view when specific roles are visible. Fixes bug 294531. See Git commit abd23c2.