Re: File dialog

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

"James M. Cape" wrote:
> I have updated the file dialog redesign to indicate changes I have since
> made. It is now more like the current dialog (relax, you'll see what I
> mean), and also combines a Nautilus-style view picker. Plus it's also
> much prettier :-)
> 
> [http://developer.gnome.org/gnome-ui/hitsquad/filedialog.html]

I don't know. I miss the directory tree. By no means should the
directory tree be the only way to navigate between directories, but I
think it's handy to have for quick directory jumps to entirely different
places in the file system.

Consider that I've always downloaded my pr0n (say using Galeon) in /tmp,
but now I've decided that's a bad idea beacuse others can read that by
default, so I'll want to download it to the /home/menthos/tmp/ dir
instead, which is only readable by me.
The "directory" history wouldn't have /home/menthos/tmp/ beacuse I've
always used /tmp/ before, so I'd have to double-click 4 times just to
get to the my wanted directory: Down to /, then into /home, then into
/home/menthos, then into /home/menthos/tmp.
If there were a directory tree pane next to the file pane, I'd just have
to single-click three times: To expand /home, /home/menthos/,
/home/menthos/tmp respectively. I much prefer single-clicking instead of
double-clicking.


Also, I miss the Back, Up, and Next Buttons from the previous file
dialog example. It's quite handy to be able to cycle in the "visited
directories history" with just icon clicks intead of having to use the
drop-down box. I think it's more intuitive too.

The Up button (that one that takes you to the parent directory) is one
of the buttons I love the most whan I have to use Windows file dialogs.
Even if there is a ".." entry it's hard to use (again: double-click)
compared to a button with an icon.
Also, the ".." entry is baaaad for you, because you sometimes have to
scroll back in the long filelist again to find it, if you've used the
scroll bar already, mmm-kay? That's one of the things I hate most with
the current file dialog: To have to exactly spot and double-click the
".." entry - an "up" button is so much easier to use.


But I like the Nautilus-style "view as" drop down box, it's better than
those "detail level" icons that were used before that basically looked
mostly the same and where it was hard to tell the difference.
I hope the "view as" remembers it's setting across all applications, so
that if I set that I want "view as text" in nautilus or in some other
file dialog in another app it will be honored in nautilus and all file
dialogs all over the place. That's a misfeature in windows, it doesn't
remember any such file dialog settings whatsoever, it always defaults to
icon view. :-(


And I don't understand why you hate icon buttons and prefer text buttons
- to me, those icons are very intuitive, and they're consistent across
translations too, making documentation and support easier (instead of
just having to refer to the placement of the buttons).
Even Nautilus uses back and forward _icons_.
But agreed, maybe an icon/text button combo would be the best.


My last opinion is that I *like* if the file dialog has most of the
functionality of a file manager. I usually don't have a file manager
running, so if I'm forced to start a file manager that's just an extra
added annoying step (how fast does Nautilus start?).
Consider that I want to save one of my previously mentioned pictures to
a floppy disk, just to find that the disk is already full with files. I
want to be able to shift-select those previous files and delete them
from inside the save dialog, so that I can save my new file.
The deleting of multiple previous files is a necessary step for my
saving procedure, so I don't want to have to start the Big File
Manager(tm) just for that.

> I prefer that the dialog be NOT used for file operations as much sa
> possible.  This is why I have limited it to RENAME and NEW DIRECTORY,
> because I can see those two special cases being used enough when saving
> files (I know I make new dirs and rename old files to have backups when
> saving).  Those can be handled via subdialogs which display the cancel
> button and behaviour.  Otherwise, have the dialog do ONE thing and do it
> well -- BROWSE FOR FILENAME OR DIRECTORY.
> 
> Anything else is NOT Unix, and probably hard to use.

Uh? The windows file dialog lets me rename and delete files from inside
it, and I don't think that anyone considers it bloaty. It's just a lot
more convinient than have to start a file manager just to
rearrange/delete the previous files so that you can save a new one.


Christian



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