Preview windows in dolphin

[geezer]

when viewing a directory list in Dolphin, I use the cursor as I scan the file names.

Dolphin pops up a window preview of the file the cursor is on. The pop-up window blocks the file names and is extremely irritaing.

I have search system settings and Dolphin setting and can find no way to turn of the preview.

That pop-up window is irritating and distracting.

How do I turn off the preview feature?

Thanks,
geezer

[claydoh]

Tooltips are not normally enabled by default, but look at Configure Dolphin >> General >> behaviour >> (Miscellaneous) enable tooltips

[Don B. Cilly]

To turn off previews, View, Show Previews.
Still, just curious: if I hover over a file, the preview does not block anything. It's shown on the side bar.

Not sure what your settings are for this, but I guess, View, Show Panels, Information (F11 does toggle the panel)...



[EDIT] And indeed, what claydoh says, Tooltips do just that, I just never tried them :·)

[geezer]

Ok, this is weird. At least to me it's weird.

If I open view and toggle "Preview" it has no effect on the big preview window that is opened when the cursor is on a line, file or folder. It only changes the icon on the left end of the folder/file name. No other effect.

If I open "settings>Configure Dolphin>>General>Behavior and toggle Tool Tips, that turns on/off the big Preview window,in addition to toggling the "Tool Tip" when the cursor is over a tool on the tool line.

So, I can have "tool Tips" and a big preview window for files and folders or neither, but not one or the other.

I was planning on upgrading to 20.04 soon. It will be interesting to see if the same behavior carries over to 20.04

Thanks for the help. I would never associate a preview window with tool tips. Like I wrote, weird.

Again, Thank you very much. That huge preview windows was driving me nuts. Trying to scan the file list and rest the cursor on a file/folder and have that big window obscuring the list was really aggravating and frustrating.

PS: I was trying to get a screen shot of the preview window, but the screen shot window could be active or Dolphin, but not both simultaneously. So no screen shot of the big preview window.

[chimak111]

PS: I was trying to get a screen shot of the preview window, but the screen shot window could be active or Dolphin, but not both simultaneously. So no screen shot of the big preview window.

Spectacle has a delay function for such cases.

Edit:
You've posted in 19.10 but it's not clear if you're using the kubuntu-backports ppa. IIRC, vanilla 19.10 has Dolphin 19.04.3. With the backports, you'd have Dolphin 19.12.3. So which version of Dolphin do you have? dolphin --version would provide that. (Sorry, if you've already mentioned it earlier.)

[claydoh]

I was planning on upgrading to 20.04 soon. It will be interesting to see if the same behavior carries over to 20.04

The feature is not enabled as a default setting so Kubuntu or most implementations won't have this behavior normally.

Upgrading won't change things even if it were as any settings you edit or change won't be overwritten during the process.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[geezer]

Spectacle has a delay function for such cases.

Edit:
You've posted in 19.10 but it's not clear if you're using the kubuntu-backports ppa. IIRC, vanilla 19.10 has Dolphin 19.04.3. With the backports, you'd have Dolphin 19.12.3. So which version of Dolphin do you have? dolphin --version would provide that. (Sorry, if you've already mentioned it earlier.)

Sorry for not being more clear.

dolphin --version
dolphin 19.04.3

geezer

[geezer]

Thank you. Never used the delay, didn't really understand what it was for. Here is the screen shot with the preview window

[geezer]

The feature is not enabled as a default setting so Kubuntu or most implementations won't have this behavior normally.

Upgrading won't change things even if it were as any settings you edit or change won't be overwritten during the process.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

Don't think I understand what you mean by "feature". Do you mean the preview window? do you mean the tool tips? Do you mean controlling the preview window as a tool tip?

Thanks,
geezer

[Don B. Cilly]

But... if you turn off tooltips you don't get the "preview window" - or do you?
Because I don't (on 20.04 and on Neon).

And toggling the right-hand info panel with F11 can be handy...

[claydoh]

Don't think I understand what you mean by "feature". Do you mean the preview window? do you mean the tool tips? Do you mean controlling the preview window as a tool tip?

Thanks,
geezer

What I mean is that there won't be any changes in behavior or settings/options in this regard when upgrading.

The tooltip is the entire window including the preview and the data shown

The tooltips option has been around for a while and have not changed much if at all over the years and after upgrading you won't see any differences.

However, hopefully this is helpful:

The tooltip is just a different representation of the Information panel that is available in Dolphin. This panel can toggled off and on with f11.

In this panel if you right click on the preview image area and click the configure button you can edit what's shown or not. The options shown do depend a bit on the type of file so there is no universal options but anything you change in the Information Panel settings is what will be shown in the tooltip. This might help reduce the clutter maybe. Or maybe using the panel might be useful for you. It changes as you mouse over files.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[geezer]

But... if you turn off tooltips you don't get the "preview window" - or do you?
Because I don't (on 20.04 and on Neon).

And toggling the right-hand info panel with F11 can be handy...

I can get both or none.

geezer

[Don B. Cilly]

Not to be persterish ;·), just curious by nature.
If you have the tooltips set to off, and toggle the info panel with F11, it turns them back on?

[geezer]

What I mean is that there won't be any changes in behavior or settings/options in this regard when upgrading.

The tooltip is the entire window including the preview and the data shown

The tooltips option has been around for a while and have not changed much if at all over the years and after upgrading you won't see any differences.

However, hopefully this is helpful:

The tooltip is just a different representation of the Information panel that is available in Dolphin. toggle it off and on with f11

In this panel if you right click on the preview window and click the configure button you can edit what's shown or not. The options shown do depend a bit on the type of file so there is no universal options but anything you change in the Information Panel settings is what will be shown in the tooltip. This might help reduce the clutter maybe. Or maybe using the panel might be useful for you. It changes as you mouse over files.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

Ok. You have a radically different definition of 'tool tip' than what I learned and experienced for years. Not wrong, just very different.

Here is a view of dolphin with what I learned and call a 'tool tip'. That little black box with white lettering is what I call a tool tip.

Just to be clear, I am stating the obvious and how I understood the term to originate.

The second row of at the top of Dolphin is called the 'Tool Bar' . The buttons are called tools. They execute a function when clicked. The meaning of some of the labels may be obscure since the label has to be short to fit the button. On some button only a pictogram is displayed. With 'tool tips' turned on a little box pops open to give a more verbose explanation of the tool. For example the little black box in the screen shot, which gives a longer description of the zoom tool than the pictogram label on the tool button. To a lot of people the pictogram doesn't mean much of anything, but once they read the popup tool tip, it becomes clearer. After some use they don't need the tool tips anymore and turn them off. Some buttons have a pictogram plus text to explain their function, e.g., "Redisplay" or "New Tab" or "Hidden Files", etc.

If I place the cursor on the "File" label above the tool bar, no tool tip pops up. That label is not a tool.

In a directory listing, a folder or file is not a tool. An executable file may be considered a "tool". That would be debatable. Files and folders are containers, not tools. Even "executable files" is somewhat of a misnomer, in that the file itself is not executable, but rather the contents are executable. "Executable File" is much easier to write and say than the description and is usually understood immediately.

Thus, to me at least, to call the window that pops up when the cursor rests on a file or folder a tool tip is a gross misuse of the English Language, granted that happens all the time, but to do so in this manner, I simply do not understand. Why contort preview into tool tip. Preview is a perfectly good word with a clear meaning. Tool Tip is a perfectly good phrase that has been used since the advent of the GUI and it's use had nothing to do with previewing the contents of files or folders which is what is clearly done in this instance.

If the developers want to continue this misuse, then I will adapt now that I know and understand their misuse.
A preview of a file or folder shows some indications of the contents thereof. That is not a 'tool tip'. It does not explain the "function" of the file or folder.

The tooltip is just a different representation of the Information panel that is available in Dolphin. toggle it off and on with f11

This is where I depart from your use. For too many years I have used the tool tip to mean as I explained above. The panel that opens when F11 is depressed is not a tool tip to me. I have never in over 50 years of working on computers and computer languages, seen that panel referred to as a 'tool tip' and I still do not understand what 'tool' it is describing.

[geezer]

Not to be persterish ;·), just curious by nature.
If you have the tooltips set to off, and toggle the info panel with F11, it turns them back on?

No.

F11 has no effect on turning them on or off. Which shows me that even the developers didn't consider the panel a 'tool tip'. Otherwise it would be logical to link F11 to the 'tool tip' setting.