[Usability] file open dialog and directories/files

[Thilo Pfennig <tp alternativ net>]

Hi.

while trying to open a file I tested if it is possible to drop a folder
into a file chooser dialog. It is not possible, except if you drop it
into the favourites list. 

I would suggest changing the default beaviour to:

1. dragging a directory into file chooser makes the dropped location as
the working directory. This could also be possible of one dropes a
folder on an application icon. This could lead to a file chooser in the
directory. Why do you want that? Because with some applications you can
filter: if you ahve a folder of different file formats but only a few
are xml - than it is nice to be able to drop a folder on an application
or file chooser. Otherwise you have to browse to the location. That can
be very complicated depending on how deep your infrastructure is.

2. dropping a file on a chooser should select that file (in the
container folder).

3. Another idea: Why don't we have things like location history? Some
application open the chooser in the last location - but why not like in
epiphany and urls someting like: I type "/usr/loc" ... and the chooser
completes to "/usr/local/lib/moin/wiki/data/" because this location was
used once. This could either be used inside an application or all over
all applications used in a session (or even older). As we rather use
more than 2-3 folders at a time (i also like "cd -" in Bash) for copying
from one source to a target this could be very useful.


-- 
http://www.alternativ.net/~vinci
Jabber: vinci jabber org