Re: a GtkFileChooser comment

[Daniel Brockman <drlion deepwood net>]

Xavier Bestel <xavier bestel free fr> writes:

> You could make '/' enter the previously selected directory. So if you
> type '..', you select the parent directory and '/' changes to that
> directory. Same thing for '~/', and '//' would go to the root.

I think this sounds very intuitive, except for the `//' part:  Let's
just make `/' with nothing before it go to the root immediately.  For
what it's worth --- with this modification --- that is exactly how
ido.el[1] for Emacs does it.

> If there's a file named "...And Justice For All.mp3", typing '..'
> would show only this file and the parent dir in the listview (the
> parent dir being selected), but typing another '.' would narrow the
> choice to the file, or using the cursor keys would enable to select
> the right file.

Again, that is exactly how ido.el works[2], except for one interesting
detail:  ido.el would display the parent directory as `../' (i.e.,
with the final slash) --- which incidentally also makes it very
obvious that, after having typed `..', you can select the parent
directory by typing a slash ---, whereas the GTK+ file chooser would
display the parent directory as `..' (without the final slash),
instead using icons to distinguish files and directories.

This is a bit unfortunate, but far from catastrophic:  Once you
discover that typing a slash enters the directory whose name you just
typed, the behavior is very intuitive.  And most people *will*
discover this, because they will at some point attempt to open a file
named `foo/bar'; those who don't --- well, they would probably have no
use for the behaviour anyway. :-)

In summary:  I think those are two awesome ideas, Xavier.


Regards,

-- 
Daniel Brockman
drlion deepwood net

[1] http://www.cua.dk/ido.el
[2] Its implicit substring matching notwithstanding.