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by johnchristopher 2029 days ago
I love KDE, it's been my daily driver since I had to reinstall a desktop in a hurry and my awesome-wm config was too old.

Dolphin et gwenview are speed killers (I love Gnome's ethos but Nautilus is a snail and is missing many features I use hourly).

Can the KDE pinephone be used as handheld computer for reading PDF, taking pictures, scanning bills and invoices, media player and that kind of things ? I am not ready to rely on it for SMS and phone calls, I can't afford to miss any calls or messages.

3 comments

The UX of Dolphin is my least favorite part of KDE.

I don't like how, in list view, the clickable portion of a file/folder is only as large as that file/folder's text label.

In all other "list view" UX I've ever used, the entire row is selectable, but in Dolphin, files with shorter names are harder to click because the clickable area is as big as the name...

Wouldn't that break rubber band selection? In list view you can click and drag anywhere to rubber band select, but if the whole row were an active click region for the file, you'd be dragging the file instead. (I just tried this in PcManFM, and it does indeed behave this way).

I agree it's inelegant to have shorter file names be harder to select, but on the other hand they all have a great big icon; the text being clickable too is just icing.

On Windows Explorer, dragging on filename to drag the item, dragging on empty space to select range, and click/doubleclick on empty space is same as on filename. I think this is reasonable.
TIL. I've always wondered how to select range besides starting from totally empty space (below the rows). Never imagined so much thought needs to go into this!
I got a landline when I switched to the pinephone and set it up to ring both. I do miss MMS messages but people who really need to get to me call or email me.
We use VoIP.ms for our landline and it emails us when someone sends an sms. I think they support mms too.
did you use mms in 2019-2020? where are you?
If you're in the US, you are using MMS in 2020.
In France too, you might. These discussions about how strange it is to still use MMS in 2020 are starting to get old quick. Among all people, those interested in the Pinephone are probably more likely to not use WhatsApp and its friends. And there are very cheap mobile plans without much data, but on which MMS are free.

Yesterday, I wrote a script to retrieve MMS "easily" on the Pinephone (in the spirit of janky-mms [1] which does not work well on my phone and of which I'm unable to read the code properly), I need to take the time to release it at some point.

[1] https://git.sr.ht/~amindfv/janky-mms

Yes. Assuming this also inlcudes SMS, it's the only thing I use.
In reality it is likely more realistic to ask where are you as most places still use MMS.
Probably in a developing country. Most of latin america uses WhatsApp, a result of carriers charging a lot of money (compared to median salary) for SMS/MMS, while WhatsApp has always been free.

When I came to the US (mid 2010's), I was surprised a large number of people never even heard of WhatsApp.

In the US they use Facebook Messenger, Google Hangouts and iMessage for sure (though not WhatsApp as you point out), but the only thing everyone is sure to have access to is SMS.
In Belgium they are quite expenseive (รง24 to send one MMS) but are more often than not bundled for free in the mobile plan.

But it never took off, I don't know of anyone using it. I must have received two in my whole life.

edit: I just checked. I can send MMS. This could have been useful. I sill send and receive SMS and I'd feel like I wouldn't try to send an MMS out of fear of the other side not getting it.

edit 2: ah, looks like it doesn't deliver. shrug

Reading PDF works with Okular.. but I doubt the (5 MP) camera is going to fit your needs. Maybe my latest video can help you to make a decision: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ8V0lRxKgM