Re: [Usability] Re: RFP: File chooser user interface

[Shaun McCance <shaunm wolfram com>]

On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 12:25, Benjamin Kahn wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 12:05, Calum Benson wrote:
> > On Mon, 2003-09-15 at 17:20, Magnus Bergman wrote:
> > > It has come to my knowledge that there is a minority of users who make
> > > heavy use of the auto completion feature. So I've been that convinced
> > > that it must stay. But I'd like it to be disabled by default (so the tab
> > > key works as expected).
> > 
> > Agree the Tab key ought to work for navigation by default, but there are
> > ways to do auto-completion without without using the Tab key, e.g. like
> > it's done in most browsers' address bars these days.  Not suggesting
> > that's necessarily the way to go, but having hidden/advanced features in
> > something that should be as simple as a file dialog sounds a bit scary
> > to me :)
> 
> 	I can think of three different completion methods being used by
> different applications.

I can think of another.  The file dialog is different from e.g. a web
browser in that the things to complete come from a known and complete
list.  That list also happens to be sitting right in front of the user. 
MacOS X does incremental selection on the directory listing as you type,
which is really nice.[1]

So rather than typing a path in a text entry and trying to do completion
or drop-downs, you just type in the directory listing (keyboard focus
defaults there), and the dialog selects as you type.  When you've typed
enough to select the right directory, you hit Enter, and the dialog
takes you into that directory.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

--
Shaun

[1] See, I really *do* have some nice things to say about OS X.