Re: Usability of the GTK+ 2 file open dialog

[Sven Neumann <sven gimp org>]

Hi,

Toby <tobia conforto linux it> writes:

> Now for one of the most annoying things ever: how in the world am I
> supposed to select hidden files on GTK2's file dialog!?

Right-click and select "Show Hidden Files" from the menu. Yes, there
should be a way to globally enable this. IIRC there's a bug report on
this for quite a while. Someone just needs to find some time (30
minutes should be more than enough) to add this to GtkSettings. But
obviously noone cares enough to contribute such a patch.

> Another one: who came up with the retarded idea of "Browse for other
> folders"?  Just show the damn thing already!  Why add 1 useless
> click (on a small widget on top of that) to 90% of file dialog
> usage?

If you started to use the bookmarks feature, it is likely that you
will not need to use the folders list for about 95% of your file
dialog usage. That is my experience at least.

> One minor thing: I noticed that Alt-Up goes to the parent directory.
> I'd give Backspace the same behaviour, following popular OS usage.

Backspace is already bound to "up-folder". It is however probably been
eaten by another widget that gets the key-press first. Might make
sense to investigate if this can be changed.

> This is only based on my user experience.  I'm sure more people will
> come up with other issues about features I'm not using (~ expansion...)

Your user model is obviously different than mine because I very much
prefer the new file-chooser over the old one. The problem is to find
something that works well for the majority of GTK+ users and I believe
that the new file-chooser dialog does a pretty good job at this. But
of course it would need some research to find out.


Sven