Re: File dialog (was: Re: First UI component needing replacement.)

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

Dylan Griffiths wrote:
> For the first component to be replaced, I have decided that the
> horrible son-of-Motif GTK+ file dialogs must go.  I have made a mockup of a
> proper file dialog, available here:
> http://www.thock.com/Dylan/new_dialog.jpg

I think that there have already been some good suggestions by the UI hit
squad for a new file dialog:
http://developer.gnome.org/gnome-ui/hitsquad/filedialog.html

Have a look at that. I think it's very similar to your idea... :)
I think the "recent directories" is a great idea, and I think that's
exactly what the "Directory" drop down box in the Hit Squad example is
intended to do.


> I've also tweaked the buttons.  I replaced the "cancel" button with the
> "close" button, since "cancel" will not rollback any operations performed in
> the dialog on any systems I have ever seen.

No no no, it should be "Cancel". It is and has always been "Cancel" in
all file dialogs I have ever seen.


> Added are a rename and new
> directory button.  This allows the user to rename old files when saving new
> ones, as well as creating new directories to store new files in quickly.
> This simple addition can a lot of time for the user.  The buttons included
> underlined letters to indicate the keyboard accelerator to use (meta + the
> underlined letter) to active them without tabbing to them/using a mouse.

Oh, good point. I don't see a "new folder" button in the UI hit squad
example. It should definately be there. In fact, that was what I thought
the button with the folder icon did, before I read the text above the
picture.

The folder button appearantly opens the current folder in the file
manager.
I think that's wrong. The folder button should create a new folder. If
there should be a button for opening the current folder in the file
manager, it should be marked with the file manager's icon (does Nautilus
have an icon yet?).


> Besides just layout, there is a behaviour problem with some common file
> dialogs that we need to stamp out.  The Motif dialog that Netscape 4.x ships
> with is a great example of a badly behaved dialog.

Don't start it. The Netscape 4.x file dialog on Unix is the worst piece
of s***t in the UI design history. It's unintuitative as hell,
counter-productive and also very buggy. :-(


Cheers
Christian



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Christian Rose
http://www.menthos.com                    	    menthos@menthos.com
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