Re: [Usability] The eternal fileselector dilemma :)

[Lemmit Kaplinski <lemmit kaplinski com>]

Hi,

BTW - is it the custom here to CC the author every time?

Kalle Vahlman wrote:

> You shot first. And at the innocent bookmarks of all things. 
>  
;)

> Bookmarks are for the _most commonly_ used locations. It's only
> natural that they don't "cover all possible situations".
>  
But that is exactly what I said. I also explained that when bookmarks 
don't cut it, one is left with a filebrowser that is hard to use. All my 
problems were with the browser and I like the bookmarks. I do.

> You also strike air with your pixel calculations, though I do agree
>  
Those were partly added for effect, you are right. But I have proven, as 
best as I can, that the area devoted to the filechooser is ridiculously 
small. Once you have clicked the triangle, you most probably want to use 
the browser. Have a look at this screenshot: 
http://bugs.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=28031&action=view No comments.

> with two things. First is the fact that the chooser gets wider when
> it's expanded. It shouldn't, as the whole point of it being wider than
> neccessary in the first place is that it would change as little as
>  
I am still a little scared of the bugzilla (I am somewhat arachnophobic 
and a creature that catches and collect various bugs is regarded with 
great suspicion from my end), could someone file a bugreport :) Oh well, 
I'll try doing it myself

> possible. The duplication of bookmarks is due to this very same
> reason, and thus neccessary. Furthermore, any changes to the layout of
>  
You lost me here. Ae you saying that the dialog expands horizontally 
(bad) in order to facilitate the duplicate bookmarks list (worse). 
Sorry, I do not get it.

> the common chooser elements should be done gobally, not just for the
> save dialog. You can't have stuff moving around in only slightly
> different situations and claim it intuitive.
>  
You are talking about the Open dialog? Well:
* In case of gedit (and probably others as well) it is already out of 
sync. For the Save dialog, the "Character Coding" menu is at the top, 
but for the Open dialog, it is at the bottom.
* I believe that my dreamchooser would work for both Save and Open: the 
pop-up menus with bookmarks, file types and such are at the top and the 
two panes or however the browsing component looks like is at the bottom..

> Second, the empty space above the path buttons should be usable for
> widgets, though I'm pretty sure this is a implementation limitation of
> the expander widget (the space for it's children is a rectangle).
>  
Yup, you are right. But as of now, that space is unused :(

> I think this is one of those complaints that arise from the fact that
> if you use spatial stuff, you won't like it when you have to navigate
> down a hirearchy. It's just a no-no. The good news is that if you
> adjust yourself to the spatial way, you won't need to navigate
> regularly.
>  
I use the spatial stuff. I have used Mac OS (and before that Amiga) for 
a long-long time and for me, a Desktop is naturally spatial. I was 
delighted when Nautilus started supporting it. Nevertheless I like 
navigating down my folder structure. I also navigate down my drawers, 
binders and other real-world desktop equipment. Spatial is just knowing 
that the file is where you put it (I won't talk about the 
metadata-powered search in this thread).

The best,

L.