Re: [Usability] Thoughts about the file chooser

[Maurizio Colucci <seguso forever tin it>]

Dave Ahlswede wrote:

> On Sun, 2004-09-26 at 03:13 +0200, Maurizio Colucci wrote:
>  
>
> > I was wondering: have you thought about replacing the whole file dialog 
> > with a single "drag files here" widget, or some kind of file list where 
> > you can drag the files to?
> >
> > This could make sense if your priority is to offer a minimal interface, 
> > with no duplication of functionality. And would solve the problem where 
> > the application asks for a file, but you already have the file visible 
> > in another file manager (be it nautilus or not).
> >
> > If dragging is too difficult, Gnome could provide a "send to" 
> > functionality (e.g. right-click file, the context menu opens, select 
> > "send to window", a window list opens, select the file chooser window). 
> > I implemented something like that in http://onefinger.sf.net.
> >    
>
> I believe this has been discussed a couple times in the past-- 
I wasn't aware of that, sorry.

> my
> personal feeling is that, while the FileChooser should be a viable drog-
> drop target for files, we shouldn't get rid of its browsing
> functionality.
>
> To tear out the browser from the filechooser would have a bad impact on
> people who, for instance, invoke their programs from a terminal and
> don't use a GUI file manager.
>  
I see. OTOH, if that's the only reason, you _could_ provide a CLI 
program to solve this problem.
The invocation would be something like

send-files   file1.pdf    file3.png  <ENTER>

and then a window list opens, asking for the target window.

I'm not sure if it would be an improvement though...

Mau