Re: FileChooser's path bar and re-rooting

[Ryan McDougall <ryan mcdougall telusplanet net>]

On Mon, 2004-03-15 at 18:38 -0500, Seth Nickell wrote:

Hi Seth, 

	I have gotten into some discussions here and elsewhere about your
design which have raised some good questions, so I hope you can answer
them quickly for me.

For the first kind of user I am a little concerned with the
discoverability of the Ctrl-l text entry. Some people familiar with
other platforms (windows specifically) will expect to see a text entry,
and not expect that they need a key combination to reach it. While they
will eventually learn to use the chooser, I believe they will do so
largely without the use of the text entry (since they can't find it);
even if it is to the detriment of their productivity.

Nautilus has a menu item allowing users to discover the Location
dialogue (god knows users don't read the manuals). Do you think the
chooser should have a graphic element to open the text entry, so users
can discover the capability on their own?

[snip]

> For Category (2) users:
>   - You switch to the Filesystem state and get full file paths. The
> dialogue remembers this state in the same way that it remembers what the
> last folder you were in was
>   - We have a control (the path bar) that aids in the annoying task of
> navigating deep heirarchies from a graphical interface

For the second user, there are things that the old text entry could do,
that the new one can't.

1. The new chooser doesn't do regular expressions. AFAIC allowing
advanced users to do regexs is a power feature that imposes to UI burden
on category (1) users. Will the future chooser implement regexs?

2. The old chooser allowed a certain amount file system discoverability
by updating the file list view when the path was tab completed.

Currently the new chooser cannot do this, and if one forgets the exact
name of the path one wants, one has to constantly Ctrl-l jump around
until the precise name is found. The new chooser could add this
discoverability to both Nautilius' and the choosers Ctrl-l by
implementing a drop down menu of all the possible completions that are
possible from the current path. This would be identical to how web
browsers currently function when you type in a URL.

> -- 
> seth nickell :: interaction designer :: red hat

Thanks in advance for your reply! I'm sure there are lots of people who
would like to know the answers.

ps. Congrats on the RH job, I thought you worked at HP?

Cheers,
Ryan