[Usability]File renaming/extensions

[Daniel Borgmann <daniel liebesgedichte net>]

Hello,

when I suggested to use middlemouseclick for file renaming, someone told
me just to use the keyboard shortcut instead. I thought about it and
realised he was right, because I will use the keyboard anyway right
after. So I tried to get used to it but quickly realised a problem and
the reason why I prefered to use the mouse before:
When pressing F2, the whole filename will be selected, including the
file extension (if there is any). But in 99% of the cases I will just
want to rename the filename, not the extension. Now I can either rewrite
everything, including the extension, or have to manually select/delete
the part of the file I want to rename (and that is slightly easier to do
using the mouse). Unconvenient for me, potentially dangereous for a new
user (it doesn't even warn when changing or omiting the extension).
My suggestion would be to select only the name part of the file without
the extension when pressing F2 (or the rename menuitem) and/or to show a
warning dialog when the extension is left out with the possibility to
reattach the old extension or confirm to remove it.
What do you think?

- Daniel