Re: GTK+-2.4.0 released

[Paul Pogonyshev <pogonyshev gmx net>]

John (J5) Palmieri wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-03-17 at 15:06, Paul Pogonyshev wrote:
> > Owen Taylor wrote:
> > > New file selector widget
> > >  
> > >  The new GtkFileChooser widgets provide a radically simplified
> > >  and improved way for users to select files. Capabilities such as
> > >  customizable filters and previews are now available for
> > >  application writers. The filesystem access is encapsulated as a
> > >  dynamically loaded module; as an example of what this allows,
> > >  libgnomeui now provides a gnome-vfs backend for GtkFileChooser
> > >  so that it has the same view of remote filesystems as
> > >  applications such Nautilus.
> >
> > Hmm.  Where is the entry field to type filenames in?  Or is it supposed
> > to work only with mouse?  I always thought GTK+ aimed at usability, but
> > what I see after creating GtkFileChooserDialog is completely unoperatable
> > from keyboard!  Is there some hidden magic to make it useful or should I
> > just stick with GtkFileSelection?
>
> Ctrl-l will being up the text entry.  I have also heard that you can
> start typing and it will jump to the file name with the suffix you typed
> though I have yet to try this (similar to mozilla's link search).  So by
> all means the new chooser is very operable from the keyboard.

Why do I need to press Ctrl-L in the first place?  And the thingie that
pops up after Ctrl-L (which doesn't seem to be an obvious thing to press,
eh?) lacks Tab-completion.

If I start typing, it won't jump anywhere.  Nothing happens.  OK, I can
press Ctrl-F as everywhere else in GtkTreeView widgets, then it will.

So, by all means it's fully operable from keyboard, but with two times the
number of keypresses I needed in GtkFileSelection.  I vote the latter.
It was a simple, Emacs-style file chooser.  Well, it was ugly, but it
was (and is) _convenient_ to use.

Paul


P.S.  please, reply to the list, I'm subscriber