GTK 2.3, And The Emerging File Selector

Anon. writes "GTK 2.3 was released today, and initial (not finalized) screenshots of the new file selector are available here(1), here(2) and here(3). But do remember that the new file chooser is very much a work-in-progress, and the UI is not yet final."

Comments

Frobnicate

[sydb]

From Foldoc.

/frob'ni-kayt/ (Possibly from frobnitz, and usually abbreviated to frob, but "frobnicate" is recognised as the official full form). To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. One frequently frobs bits or other 2-state devices. Thus: "Please frob the light switch" (that is, flip it), but also "Stop frobbing that clasp; you'll break it". One also sees the construction "to frob a frob".

Usage: frob, twiddle, and tweak sometimes connote points along a continuum. "Frob" connotes aimless manipulation; "twiddle" connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; "tweak" connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it, he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen, he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. The variant "frobnosticate" has also been reported.

(1994-12-16)

Didn't really help me...

It better be good...

[Gnulix]

Considering the time and effort that has gone into this file selector, the previews of porn pics ought to be able to jump out and give you a blow job...

good start

[Ender Ryan]

That's a nice start, just put a friggin home button on it and i'll be happy.

I like the idea of having "bookmarks" in my file selector.

Why is this so hard?

[Crayon Kid]

I hope they get it right, already. I bet it's gonna be some bloated kitchen sink that resembles Nautilus in complexity, complete with all kinds of previews and bells and whistles, and that it still won't be able to remember the last used directory.

I'd also put my 2 cents on them trying to catch up with KDE's file selector. No matter what people say, that's not my ideal one. I'm much more fond of the one Mozilla [Firebird] has -- that one is the embodiment of the KISS principle to such extent I'd venture to call it perfect. That's if you agree on the definition of perfect as being "not nothing to add, but nothing left to take away".

Well....

[samjam]

We've come a long way since the original stinky X file selector dialogs, but thats about the best I can say about it.

No doubt a lot of honest graft has gone into the design but it stinks, really.

Give me the latest windows shell open dialogs with shortcuts in the left hand side, pop-down directory list and big file selector with alternative views.

The only fault with that windows dialog is the small default size.

But these new GTK dialogs are just true-type anti-aliased windows 3.1 dialogs trying to show the directory tree and file list through two tiny peepholes.

Ugh

Sam

Re:Well....

[Alethes]

Giving them credit for something that is not finalized, I still have to say that I'm disappointed with the direction this is headed. It seems that the file selector and Nautilus both have gone the complete opposite direction as the rest of the GNOME and GTK projects in that they're not simplifying and making the desktop more intuitive and usable. Even if everything else is perfect, the usablity of GNOME will suffer greatly as long as the foundational elements of the file selection and file management are not done properly. Even copying the UI of the KDE and Windows file selectors would be a dramatic improvement over the existing product.

Yea, good start.

[Inoshiro]

Getting closer to QT/KDE's fileselector. Once they add home; back; forward; logical parent; new dir; bookmarks (web kind), configure, a direct type path with memory; character encoding; proper MIME filtering; and (my favourite feature) an easy to configure with custom-icons left-hand directory bookmark, which just happens to be configurable per-app that calls the file selector dialog or globally, we'll have seen progress.

Hopefully the Gnome people can build on this.

Maybe next round...

[kwerle]

Sigh. You can see the problems with it just by looking at it on any system with a good dialogue (OSX, for example).

No favorite folders (buttons/popup). No home folder (button). Image3 shows PERFECTLY that you can't tell the full path in the window without scrolling up and memorizing the directories you're in, instead of left->right and seeing them all highlighted (treeview blows). Look at it - am I in my image directory, or bobs?

There are good file dialogue boxes out there - have been for years. STEAL THEM.

yeah, maybe this is flamebait, but mostly I'm tired of bad non-osx file dialogues.

Re:Maybe next round...

[kwerle]

initial (not finalized)" don't you understand? The design work on this just started less than a month ago. Give them a chance.

To me, this looks like just about every other unix file dialogue. Bad.

They're posting mock-ups. There's no reason a mock-up should look this bad.

Again, this is all IMNSHO.

I say

[Kickasso]

steal a few ideas from SGI's file selection dialog. It's probably the best (and the most underrated) widget that ever existed on a Unix desktop...

MacOS

[Michael.Forman]

Ugh. What a hideous file selector. After installing and taking MacOS X Panther for a spin last night, I'm just amazed how backwards and unprofessional GTK's file selectors are.

If it's not possible to compete with commercial operating systems, why not make a radically different file selector as an option. Imagine a command-line interface where the user 'cd's into the appropriate directory and does a 'put'? Of course, I'm of the mind that Evolution and Open Office should have a "vi" input mode.

Michael.

Another Prototype.

[Anonymous Coward]

I came accross these GTK file dialog mock ups recently.

They look really good.k

Re:hooray for usability

[squiggleslash]

Most OSes I've seen generally give the coder some ability to add custom elements to standard selectors. An app might want to add a "Open Read Only" check box. A text editor might want to allow a user to select an HTML document and check an "Edit as plain text" box to ensure the editor doesn't load it as a rich-text document.

It can be a useful thing to do. Whether it'll end up being used properly is ultimately the choice of the programmer.

FLTK gets it right

[sunya]

FLTK's file chooser uses the best of all worlds... GTK should probably just adopt it and be done with it.

it's eXtreme Programming

[axxackall]

In extreme programming frobnication of source code is what the coder does most of the day hoping it will work by the end.

I guess that that gtk programmer occasionally created that file dialog after a lot of frobnication. But he was a smart lazy programmer, so he automated a part of frobnication running it recursively from within the file dialog itself.

I also guess that if no-one will stop the guy then he will frobnicate the code further and eventually it will be AI dialog talking to him.

Look beneath the surface

[timotten]

The release notes say:

GtkFileChooser: a replacement for GtkFileSelection with replaceable backends, many new API features, better user interface (UI is still a work in progress) [Owen Taylor, Federico Mena Quintero]

It's not clear from the changelog what is supposed to be replaceable, but looking at the gtk-devel mailing list (it took me 1 minute), a fine description was posted a couple weeks ago. Applications and users can both provide shortcuts. It can use GnomeVFS instead of Unix file access, so you get access to remote folders and all that...

Not bad looking but

[LWATCDR]

I did not see anyway to change the view I tend to like to use the details view in windows. It would also be useful to beabile to sort by date or name and to have the option of setting the view for the applications or for the entire desktop.
just a sugestion.