[Pkg-kde-extras] Bug#422577: komparator: confusing jargon: "Left URL", "Right URL", "co-reference", etc.

[A. Costa]

Package: komparator
Version: 0.5-1
Severity: important

Right clicking on a found duplicate file gives a context menu
that includes:

    Trash co-reference files
    Delete co-reference files

I didn't understand what "co-reference" meant and looked it up in the
'khelp' docs; there was no definition:

    % grep -i "co-ref" -n /usr/share/doc/kde/HTML/en/komparator/index.docbook
    474:files from the co-reference folder (only in the <emphasis>Duplicate files</emphasis> tab),
    558:When selecting a new file in the upper list view, the files from the co-reference folder
    563:in the upper list view, that are in the co-reference folder.
    565:<emphasis>Trash co-reference files</emphasis> or <emphasis>Delete co-reference files</emphasis>.

Without knowing which file would be deleted, I don't dare use this
program.  I believe most new users would be stumped too, hence the
'important' tag.

Perhaps a user could perform a trial-and-error test, and thus
determine by experiment what the function does; make some dummy files,
copy them do a duplicate directory, etc.  

An abundance of terms refer to two directories (and 
their sub-directories):

    1   Left URL
    2	Right URL
    3	Reference folder (right/left?)
    4	co-reference
    5   the lower duplicate files list ("What's This" for 'Reference Folder')
    6   the other folder

The current layout displays #1 just above #2; this seems particularly
confusing, and the whole opening screen is an asymmetric stack of boxes;
'komparator' isn't laid out like 'Midnight Commander' where left/right
is intuitively obvious.  Worse, the term 'left' seems to be used in a
different sense in at least one tooltip:

    Trash the files selected in the list view on the left

Possible term pairs come to mind, such as:

    Keep/Duplicate
    A/B
    first/second
    Original/Copy

I wouldn't insist those names are better though.  Finding good
names for things isn't trivial.

If it matters, I have used other GUIs designed to find duplicate
files.  For example, 'Dupeless', by N. J. Rubenking, circa 1998,
distributed via PC Magazine; it runs under 'wine'.  'Dupeless' is 
a bit clunky, not elegant, not feature rich, nor especially
confusing.  Running it now, for the sake of comparison, what's
striking is that it's jargon free -- one needn't learn any new
terms to use it.


Hope this helps...

    

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) (ignored: LC_ALL set to C)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages komparator depends on:
ii  kdelibs4c2a          4:3.5.6.r1.dfsg.1-3 core libraries and binaries for al
ii  libacl1              2.2.42-1            Access control list shared library
ii  libart-2.0-2         2.3.19-3            Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libattr1             1:2.4.32-1.1        Extended attribute shared library
ii  libaudio2            1.9-1               The Network Audio System (NAS). (s
ii  libc6                2.5-4               GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libfontconfig1       2.4.2-1.2           generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6         2.2.1-5             FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libgamin0 [libfam0]  0.1.8-2             Client library for the gamin file 
ii  libgcc1              1:4.1.1-21          GCC support library
ii  libice6              1:1.0.3-2           X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libidn11             0.6.5-1             GNU libidn library, implementation
ii  libjpeg62            6b-13               The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  libpng12-0           1.2.15~beta5-1      PNG library - runtime
ii  libqt3-mt            3:3.3.7-4+b1        Qt GUI Library (Threaded runtime v
ii  libsm6               1:1.0.2-2           X11 Session Management library
ii  libstdc++6           4.1.1-21            The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libx11-6             2:1.0.3-7           X11 client-side library
ii  libxcursor1          1:1.1.8-2           X cursor management library
ii  libxext6             1:1.0.3-2           X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxft2              2.1.12-2            FreeType-based font drawing librar
ii  libxi6               1:1.0.1-4           X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1         1:1.0.2-1           X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxrandr2           2:1.2.1-1           X11 RandR extension library
ii  libxrender1          1:0.9.2-1           X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  libxt6               1:1.0.5-2           X11 toolkit intrinsics library
ii  zlib1g               1:1.2.3-13          compression library - runtime

komparator recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information