[Usability] Filechooser and filename suffixes

["Robert Staudinger" <robert staudinger gmail com>]

Hello,

since I couldn't find any discussion on that in the HIG I'm directing
my request to this mailing list.

As you know AbiWord supports a handful of document formats (depending
on the number of installed plugins) which are commonly distinguished
primarily by filename suffix. Discussions have been emerging from time
to time how to best present that different formats in the "Save"
filechooser.
Most apps (including abiword) present a combo-box for selecting the
desired format, what's less consistent is the interaction between the
manually typed filename and the format combo.

+ Assuming the combo shows "use default" or something like that should
the combo automatically switch to ".doc" when e.g. "foo.doc" is typed
in the filename entry?

+ Assuming the combo switched to ".doc" as described above, should the
combo revert to "use default" or whatever previous selection if the
user continues typing "foo.document"?

+ Or should maybe the selected suffix be appended to the typed
filename regardless of whether it matches a known suffix?

+ Let's again assume the user typed "foo.doc" and then changes the
combo to ".odt" (1) should the ".odt" suffix be appended in the
filename entry (2) should the application try to find out whether the
filename entry contains a known suffix and eventually replace it or
(3) should the filename entry not be modified at all?

There might of course be more examples I'm just listing the most
obvious ones that came up in previous discussions.
Ultimately it might of course be favourable to have the behaviour
implemented in the filechooser itself, but that would as well require
to figure out the preferred way of solving that issue.

Thanks for any advice,
Rob
AbiWord developer