[Usability] File Open/Save dialog

[SZABÓ Gergely <szg subogero com>]

Hello,

A few thoughts on the file Open/Save dialogs. I've just had a quick look 
in Bugzilla, there are about 200 related bugs, each dealing with some 
minor aspect. I'd rather propose a more general solution.

Note: my remarks are based upon Gnome 2.26 (ubuntu 9.04).

1. Layout
1.1. File name edit-box should be together with optional file-type or 
encoding drop-downs.
1.2. "Places" should be deleted or optional, see below
1.3. Folder Button-bar should be deleted or optional, see below
1.4. Separate "Save in folder" and ""Browse for other folders" are an 
unnecessary complication, just display the folder-browser

2. Folder Browser Behaviour
2.1. Hotkey Backspace for up-dir does not work as in Nautilus
2.2. Even item up-dir ".." is missing
2.3. Items are not right-clickable as in Nautilus

3. Keyboard navigation
3.1. Tab-completion in file-name edit box is nice, but first I thought 
it's broken keyboard navigation
3.2. Escape from file-name edit box by Ctrl-Tab is not intuitive, as Tab 
works everywhere else
3.3. Folder Browser unusable due to lack of up-dir hotkey, see above
3.4. "Places", folder button-bar etc are simply a huge bug as regards 
keyboard navigation, see above

4. (Dis)similarity to Nautilus
To summarise things, the dialog's main problem is its dissimilarity to 
Nautilus. It looks similar, but it behaves completely differently, which 
users do not expect. I actually think Nautilus and these dialogs should 
be the very same project. A few points below, how this would heal the 
problems above:
4.1. Use Nautilus-config in the dialogs
4.1.1. Take over layout config from Nautilus (presence of Places, 
button-bar etc)
4-1.2. Use the icons/list/column layout as configured in Nautilus for 
the Folder browser
4.2. Take over Folder Browser's behaviour from Nautilus
4.2.1. Backspace for up-dir
4.2.2. All items right-clickable with usual context-menu (e.g. remove 
write-protection etc)

Finally, back to the Tab-completion stuff in the filename edit-box. On 
second thoughts, I find it very "Unixy", especially that this file-name 
edit-box is in focus upon opening the dialog. But I think the file-type 
drop-down (if present) should be moved up, right below this edit box.

Actually, this Tab-completion is so good, all the rest of the dialog box 
could be made optional :-)

Best regards
Gergely