Re: Usability of the GTK+ 2 file open dialog

[Michael L Torrie <torriem chem byu edu>]

On Fri, 2006-03-24 at 10:16 +0000, Iain * wrote:
> On 2/24/06, Peter Eckersley <pde cs mu oz au> wrote:
> 
> > Is anyone else equally frustrated?
> 
> Nope.

Yes.  I am.  And most of the dozen or so gnome users that I know are
also annoyed to varying levels.

Every time I want to save a file, invariably the dialog box is pointing
to the wrong place.  Bookmarks are useful, I know, but I find staying on
the keyboard far more efficient that reaching over to use the mouse.  I
blame that on app developers, though, for not properly remembering the
last location I used.  Some apps do this, others don't. 

I find the save dialog box to be lacking because it is far quicker for
me to type the full path to the place where I want to save the document
than to click on the browse arrow, navigate to the folder I want.  The
problem with typing is that if you accidentally overwrite the suggested
file name (say you're doing save-as from gimp or something) with the
path you want to go to, you lose the file name.  This happened on GTK1
too but it was finally fixed towards the end.  It's a shame to see GTK2
regress in this area.  If it bothers me sufficiently I'll have to send a
small patch to the list to finally fix this on GTK2.  

If you are careful to not wipe out the file name in the save or save-as
dialogs, I've found that the drop-down box with suggestions that is so
useful (completion) can not function.  So you end up with no completion
at all in this case, forcing you to resort to extraneous mouse clicks or
a lot of typing.  Either way this is very annoying and possibly broken
behavior.

"Fixing" the whole file selector dialog box is still pretty subjective.
I think coding up some working examples of minor improvements is the
most useful thing to do.  I did that on gtk1 back in the day (just added
simple history, bookmarks) and it was quite popular for a very short
while.  I guess it's a matter of how bothered one has to be before he is
motivated to submit patches.

Most folks I know (windows, mac, linux users) who use a gtk2 app such as
the gimp usually don't have any problems figuring out how to open and
save files.  In other words the dialog is usable on a basic level.  But
a lot of folks do find it annoying in my experience (I work in IT and
help desk).  So, Iain, if you are suggesting that there's no room for
improving the usability and efficiency of the gtk file selector dialog
boxes, then you are mistaken.

Michael


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