Dolphin file size measurement setting

[shag00]

It appears that the default setting for the file size column, for file size, in Dolphin is the largest unit that is greater than 1. So we are presented with a mess like:

file1 23KB
file2 23GB
file3 49MB

which makes it very difficult to run your eye down the list and find the file you want. Like so:

file1 23KB
file2 230000KB
file3 49000KB

Is there a setting somewhere that forces a uniform unit of measurement as shown in the second example?

[Don B. Cilly]

Apparently not.
But wouldn't sorting by size (clicking on Size at the top) be helpful in this case?

[jlittle]

I thought to myself, you could tag the files with the size in the format you want, and show the tag column. But, it didn't work; there is a bug in dolphin that blanks out the tag column.

[shag00]

Another case of bad management. Someone, somewhere wrote some code that enabled different measurement units and left the job, half baked. Don, yes I suppose I could but then I realise I CBF, I just want some basic functionality to work as expected, or more precisely what is generally provided.

Dolphin, can't quite edge out Discover but I'm sure it's not for lack of trying. I have been trying to get the duration of movies displayed in Dolphin for years. Tickets keep coming back as fixed but release after release the duration still does not show.

[Don B. Cilly]

- Did you mean "CBS"? --- in a Google voice ;·)

Personally, I find Dolphin an absolute race horse, sleek, powerful, customisable... everything can always be improved, but as it is, Dolphin is not that bad as a whole. Discover I find so :·/

[kubicle]

I'm not a huge dolphin fan, but it is without a doubt the best (in both features and configurability) default file manager in any DE in Linux (or any other operating system).

Displaying file sizes by Kb/Mb/Gb is called "human-readable" for a reason, it's relatively hard for humans to discern between 230 Gb and 23 Gb if it's displayed in Kb.

The only use case where displaying file sizes in Kb only could be (objectively) better is when you're not that interested in individual size of the files, but rather wish to compare file sizes in a directory at a glance (which files are big and which are small), and even in that case sorting by size is usually a superior method, especially if there are so many files in a directory that you'd need to scroll to see them all.

Of course we all have our preferences of how we want our file managers to behave, but it's impossible for any file manager to meet all the expectations anyone might have.

[oshunluvr]

Funny how many variations there are of what's considered a "must have" for an application like Dolphin. After using it since it first came out, I have never found another fm that measured up. I write service menus that do almost anything I want and it's an amazing tool. I would never want to see a 1.6GB file look like 1664837316. They do call it human readable for a reason. Of course, you could just hit F4 and type ll to see it that way. But each to his own.

I just wish the developer would stop arguing with the internet and make USB devices unmountable instead of the useless "Safely Remove"

[jglen490]

Huh, I've never considered file size to be a particularly useful parameter for distinguishing among files. The size of a specific file is important to the file, but is less important than file type and file name. Size is just not particularly unique

[shag00]

I can't argue with anything anyone has said. Upon reflection I find that after years of using Ubuntu I am now able to move my workflow process over and it requires a number of small changes to the practices/habits of decades of Windows use. I am really happy with this new ability, I successfully completed my first end to end Ubuntu processing this week. Having done what I do for so long I know what file I need based on how many bytes it has because each file type I need is in a clearly defined size band. There is only one frequent activity that now requires me to use Windows and I could at a pinch use Ubuntu but I am to lazy primarily because there are a couple of infrequent activities that I still need Windows for.