Re: [Usability] The eternal fileselector dilemma :)

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, [ISO-8859-1] RUAUDEL Frédéric wrote:

> Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 10:19:31 +0200
> From: "[ISO-8859-1] RUAUDEL Frédéric" <ruaudel embl-grenoble fr>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] The eternal fileselector dilemma :)
>
> Hi,
>
> Alan Horkan wrote:
>
> >[snip]
> >I too very much like the bookmarks concept.
> >
> >
>
> Yes, I think bookmark is a very good idea too, but the problem is that
> I  have one or two favorite location for each application I use. For
> example, I have an "Images" folder for the gimp, an "OfficeDocuments"
> folder for OOo, a "Music" folder for grip, etc. What I generally do, is
> choosing the best bookmarks, then expand the browser and choose the
> appropriate subfolder but it is very very satisfactory.

I too have a folders for
Documents, Pictures, Spreadsheets, Music, Videos, Web-pages, etc
and bookmarks provide a way to compensate for the fact that is extremely
difficult to get people to agree what these few stock folders should be
beyond the minimum requirement for a "Documents" folder (and I thank the
Gnome designers for resiting the temptation to prefix everything with
"My ")

If you have created bookmarks for these default folders they appear in the
"Save in Folder" list and there is much less need to expand the Save
Dialog.  It works really well.

> So to solve the problem of bookmarking everything, it could be great to
> have bookmarks saved by applications and not system wide. I know that
> those who are new to computing will probably only need a

adding the same shortcuts over and over again for each application is
rather tedious and I'm not sure it is the best general case but there
is room for more flexibility on how bookmarks are shared or not shared
between applications.

even if you have four or five differnt types and subtypes of document
folders i think it is remains fairly managable to show them all.

> "MyDocuments-like" folder where they will put everything, but as soon as
> you need to organize quite a little your files, you'll probably never
> need a bookmarks named "Music" when you save a OOo documents and
> vice-versa.  So if your favorite application can show you your favorites
> places and only them, for the kind of documents it generates when you
> try to save them, it would be great. By doing so, you could place every
> folder you need in your bookmarks and avoid the need to expand the
> browser to choose a more specific one. And maybe for new user, the
> system can provide in the preferences a place to set a catch all folder
> (eg; MyDocuments) that could appear by default in every application
> bookmarks.

I think if the File Chooser was a bit better about remembering the last
directory used (and it think that is application specific) I would hope
there would be less need have seperate lists of bookmarks for each
application.

> So I don't know if it is the fault of the filechooser that do not
> provide the API to do it or if it is just that application don't
> implement it, but it could greatly improved the "saveas..." dialog
> experience.

I also think there is room for improvement, hopefully we can come up with
a clear proposal on how to go about it.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
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