Re: [Usability] Pathbuttons-Field

[Liam R E Quin <liam holoweb net>]

On Sat, 2006-02-11 at 20:59 +0300, Alexey Rusakov wrote:
> Thorsten Wilms wrote:
> > With the file dialog issues coming up again and again, I suddenly
> > had this idea to combine a textfield with path-buttons:
> > 
> > http://xs67.xs.to/pics/06066/text-path_a_b.png
> > 
> > The file list below it should be filtered for the string as it's 
> > entered, or browser style autocompletion could be shown attached 
> > below the field.
> > 
> > Entering / after the name of an existing dir would turn that part 
> > of the path into a button. "../" (maybe even "cd ../") could also 
> > work.

Interesting
[...]

> Very interesting, I like the idea. Concerning further steps, I'd really 
> appreciate if such a field had an autocompletion (with a list of possible 
> choices) in some form; I miss it very much in a current address entry. Of 
> the two versions presented, I prefer the upper one.

The lower one is very like an experimental feature that was prototyped
for the open look ui some 10 years ago or more; initial usability
tests were mentioned by Kevin Mullet and Darrell Sano in "Designing
Visual Interfaces" -- such a change would need to be pervasive to
feel part of Gnome, I think.

Liam


-- 
Liam Quin - XML Activity Lead, W3C, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
Pictures from old books: http://fromoldbooks.org/
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