Our Prayers Have Been Answered

Yesterday, developer and blogger ShaneQFul posted about a new project that he’s been working on.  One that fills an enormous void in the KDE space, and moreover, the Kubuntu space.  No Ubuntu One integration for Dolphin, KDE’s default file manager.  Shane answers this void with a new plugin.

It seems that most of the groundwork already existed, so designing the plugin was straight-forward and easy.

That only  leaves the dolphin integration. Unfortunately the dolphin plugin was actually the only part of apache logger’s Ubuntu One for KDE project that he didn’t really like. He says it no where near production quality. I therefore decided to roll up my sleeves and write my own.

This plugin solves one of our longest gripes with Kubuntu.  The other being lack of Dropbox integration.  Of course it’s not fair to direct our gripes to the KDE or Kubuntu teams, as we should be asking Dropbox and Canonical to provide official support.  Either way, this plugin is a tremendous step forward for users of Ubuntu One and KDE.

Per ShaneQFul’s blog, this plugin replicates all of Ubuntu One’s functionality with the exception of showing you which files and folders are being synced within Dolphin.  Fear not, it seems that this functionality is the very next thing on this developer’s plate!

I’m now going to take a look at apachelogger’s old code for the version control plugin he wrote and the code for the git and svn dolphin plugins to see about showing what files are in sync, like nautilus does. I’m starting a job on Monday so I probably won’t have the time for it for a while but I’ll post it here whenever I finish it. Also on a side note I’ll have to do it in C++ and I don’t like C++ as a language but it’ll get done

A Brief Commentary

If anything, this should only further solidify Canonical’s stance on KDE.  The absence of Dolphin integration for Ubuntu One makes it resoundingly clear that Canonical sees no importance in the KDE.  Canonical has put an enormous effort into making a workable client for Microsoft Windows, but has ignored it’s contemporaries all together.  It seems that having the client software was half the battle, and this developer has been able to make tremendous progress towards integration with less than 50 lines of code.

It’s a shame that Canonical can’t burden such an expense.

Source | ShaneQFul