Re: [Usability] Getting rid of Open and Save entirely?

[David Christian Berg <david berg gmx net>]

Alright, I'm new to the list and therefore don't really know, what
already has been discussed, so forgive me, if I'm bringing old topics.
But here's my view on open/save file dialogs:

Since the open and the save dialog should look and feel alike, because
that way they are easier to learn to deal with, I'll make no further
differentiation.

> My opinion (though certainly questionable) is, that we don't even need
> File->Open. Besides other problems, it also breaks every try to make

No, even in the long term, I wouldn't want to get rid of it completely.
It is very handy when you already have a file opened and want to open
another one with the same app. The app (should) remembers the location
where you've been before and you also don't need to do any shuffling of
the windows to finally find a filemanger one. The dialog just opens on
top of everything else when you click the save or the open button.


> Because of this, I'd suggest to make the new file dialogs as simple
> and straight forward as possible, _without_ turning them into mini
> file managers.

The question is, if you perhaps can have both. File management is not
what you should be to do with a open/save dialog, I agree, but then
again, sometimes I notice files being at the wrong spot or having a
wrong name while opening or saving a file. In these cases I want to be
able to move the file or rename it, without the trouble of opening up a
nautilus window. Simple and straigth forward does not exclude these
features. You could for example have F2 for renaming a selected file,
and ctrl+x and crtl+v and drag&drop for moving it? These are simple ways
of doing what I want to do without getting a visible feature overkill.
There also should be a right-click menu to rename copy and do the such.
Personally I wouldn't mind a rename and a new folder button, in the
nav-bar.

Speaking of a nav-bar: Yes, I think there should be one to go back and
forward and to reload and stop the loading. I also like a bookmark
panel, where you can selct your favorite locations and which you can
change via drag&drop.
Of course the the location entry cannot be missing, and there's to be
tab completion as well! Tab-completion is something I'm missing very
much every time I gotta use windows.

Well, however, there's a lotta talk about using the filemanager
(nautilus) to do the open/save dialogs. Assuming that there's a chance
of nautilus starting faster or computers becoming faster, I actually
like that idea. That is because one is used to the interface of nautilus
already and does not have to get along with a new interface.
But since I know people, who don't even have nautilus installed or are
rarely using it, there must as well be other gtk open dialog. It should
be checked, whether or not nautilus everytime the open dialog is called
or there should be a config option to choose whether or not to use
nautilus.
However, even if you would want to use nautilus (I do), there'd have to
be made several changes to it. But most of them are changes I'll suggest
the nautilus people anyway. There would have to be a bookmark-panel for
the side panel; there would have to be the option of editing the
navigation bar (to add rename and new folder, if one wants to) and I'd
suggest that there are more options to configure the views. Furthermore
the right click menu in the nautilus list view has to be improved, so
that one can add folders by that. Given this, which certainly is not ask
to much, I see a great chance for nautilus to become the open/save
dialog.

One problem, I'm not yet quite sure how to solve is the preview, which
for instance gimp uses. The point is, I'd greatly appretiate a
preview-panel for the nautilus navigator anyway, but this doesn't help
with a open dialog, because for that the app itself must generat the
preview. However, I'm confident, that there'll be a good solution to
this problem, too.

I've made a mockup (without any kind of a preview-panel) for a
nautilus-based open dialog. Take a look at it at
http://www.sipsolutions.de/open-save-mockup.png
I hope it helps you to get an idea of how I'd suggest a new open/dialog
to be like.

Take care.

David