Re: [Usability] The new file chooser

[rkaa netcom no]

Sitat Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>:

> On Mon, 2004-09-20 at 17:47 +0200, rkaa netcom no wrote:
> >
> > Not good enough. I have serialized filenames. I want to open the "next"
> file
> > sometimes. It is one letter or digit off from the filename of a file i
> > previously pasted. So I want to paste the filename and edit the one
> > letter/digit and then click "open". I can't do that now. Major drawback.
> >
>
> When you paste, the chooser would jump to what was pasted, and ctrl+L
> would open containing what was pasted.
>
> "next" file would normally just mean pressing down arrow due to sort
> order, so a typical sequence would be ctrl+o to open, ctrl+v to paste
> filename, down arrow, Enter.
>
> Havoc
>

I'm not getting through to you... and this is all taking the wrong direction.

A paste should never jump. Typeahead should jump. Typeahead should trigger on
key input of a character / character sequence. Keyboard navigation is a
poweruser tool. Distrincly different from mouse-navigation. You scroll, select,
drag, drop, copy, paste with a mouse. To introduce a "paste ahead" feature
sounds extremely confusing. It would be an abstract in the GUI, and the user
would never know when and where it worked, and how.

To further stress that its unusable also in a "psudo text" widget:
A paste can be a whole email. What should the filepicker "jump" to then?

I don't think it's a path anyone would want to go down. IMO a paste should
definately NOT jump. A paste should just paste -  into something you can see.
Keep it simple.

Invisible widgets that "somehow" accept and act on their pastes, would be most
unexpected. "Can I paste into nothing?"

To introduce "different kind of pastes" would be very confusing. More confusing
than having to choose between visible elements.  A visible element will always
feel more "real" to relate to.

But the bottom line remains: Why should I be forced to use *the keyboard* in
order to paste with *the mouse*? Once the GUI is established, that is NOT a
good interface.

I want to paste a location/filename/path, be able to edit it if needed, click an
OK or OPEN button - in as few operations as possible. It should all be doable
with mouse only.


R.K.Aa