Re: filechooserbutton and saving

["Karl H. Beckers" <karl h beckers gmx net>]

Hello Tristan, David,

On Mon, June 26, 2006 10:36 pm, Tristan Van Berkom said:
> [...]
> Interesting warning, is it possible that the filechooser button was
> intended to select a file and display the selected file ?
>
> It is possible that whoever wrote this button code had a good reason
> to limit the ways in which people would try to use it ?

this sure is a possibility ....
I will readily concede that I may just be lacking insight in the rationale
behind such a decision and will try to catch up here (David'd reply was
rather helpful).

However, in regarding this ...

> > In my opinion `save file chooser' is an entry plus a button
> > to browse the filesystem if one wishes to.  Anything
> > requiring me to click on some button which launches yet
> > another dialog just to enter a file name is Evil.

... I can't quite see (perhaps because I haven't yet reviewed the complete
discussion) why it is more evil to have a filechooserbutton which displays
the currently selected file to popup a save dialog than a menu item or a
simple button in a button bar which is used in a gazillion of
applications.

I have this application which needs a couple of default files which I user
sets in a single tabbed preferences dialog along with other related
settings. I was previously planning to have a GtkEntry where one could
type a file name and next to it a button that would pop up a file
selection dialog in case the user wants to select an existing file.

I also can't see why this is less evil, but I need somewhere to display
the currently selected filename. Or is it politically more correct to
require the user to always click the "save as" button to see what he's
configured currently. And if I display the selected file next to the
button, I can display it in the button ... and then I would like the nice
looks of the filechooserbutton.

> Does it not make sence to use a "Save"/"Save as..." interface like
> most uis do ?

If that's what most of you do, then that at least answers the question of
how people behave in the situation as it is.

Thanks and Regards,

Karl.