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Comment by zeotroph | Hacker News Reader

What is it with the simplified Gtk file dialogs?

Whenever I use one I am instantly annoyed because I get the impression that some UI-concept from MacOS was badly copied, but is a mismatch for arguably more poweruser-centric Linux user base. Once I discovered that Ctrl-L can bring up the url/file path I found it at least usable, but still not pleasant.

Am I using it wrong? Can I change the default system wide somehow? Is there a design document which can finally convince me that this is generally a good idea, just not for me?

Also, some Gtk apps had/have tearable menus, a shame these went out of fashion. Is there something fundamentally wrong with that, too, or can this be enable globally for Gtk, and maybe even Qt apps?

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you can change it system-wide... but there's a bug which means it constantly gets reset

the most annoying thing about the dialogs is if you type a filename in: instead of selecting the file with that name it starts doing a recursive search...

no-one has EVER wanted to do that

This is rapidly becoming GNOME’s most famous bug. The developers still claim it’s working as intended.

GNOME suddenly changing things for the worse, breaking muscle memory and making previously easy things difficult or impossible, while tone-deaf developers intone the "it's not broken, your workflow's broken" mantra in the background, has become a regular thing. It's like living in hurricane country and accepting you'll need to replace the windows from time to time.

I really wish they'd stop doing this, though.

Have you tried either GNOME Classic or MATE? It seems like a difficult ask to request that developers stop trying new things.

> The developers still claim it’s working as intended.

If they are the developers they probably know what they intended.

To me, the most famous bug is that an entry is selected by default when you enter a directory. This renders it nearly impossible to select a directory (instead of a file) from the picker, because you will always enter the directory instead of picking it! The only way is to first enter the target directory, deselect the default with control-click, and then hit okay.

That's why I'm using Nemo as file manager in Ubuntu. Unfortunately the files dialog is still Nautilus but it's okish there, given I don't have to do much when picking a file or deciding where to save it.

Install nautilus typeahead search fork to fix that: https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/05/enable-nautilus-type-ahe...

The file save dialog is the worst UI I have to fight with daily. It's such a seriously badly designed piece of UX.

Is there a simple way to save a file to a parent folder in the UI without using Ctrl+L? Other than select the grandparent, and from there select the parent?

In the filename box, press enter to save to the dir you're viewing rather than selecting one deeper.

Thank you very much. Something that genuinely makes my computer use more tolerable.

There's an issue asking for an icon view with thumbnails in the GTK file picker. The discussion has been ongoing for sixteen years: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/233

Thank you for the Ctrl+L trick! This has been killing me for ages.

> Once I discovered that Ctrl-L can bring up the url/file path I found it at least usable.

This seems to be the same shortcut on Gnome and Windows, so I'm curious where it comes from.

> I'm curious where it comes from.

Web browsers. Ctrl-L = focus location bar since at least Netscape Navigator.

I didnt know about ctrl+l. I use Alt+D all the time.

Netscape Navigator on Mac used it in 1999:

https://www.w3.org/WAI/UA/netscape-keyboard.html

I don't have a thought of where to check next. It could originate there, as a mnemonic for command+link.

It's "L" is because it focuses the location bar.

I've always felt Gtk file dialogs make life difficult for you. Thanks for pointing out Ctrl+L though... how wise of them to make that feature so "accessible". NOT. :-(

Ctrl+L is a pretty standard "location" shortcut. Try it in almost all web browsers, Windows Explorer and quite a few other applications with an address bar ;-)

> a mismatch for arguably more poweruser-centric Linux user base.

Uhm, to the best of my knowledge the macOS file dialogue is far more powerful than anything the various linux toolkits offer.

Which is to their point.

I thought their point was that Linux shouldn't poorly copy Apple because they have a different, more power-user centric client base. But copying Apple isn't the problem here, Apple is strictly superior on all metrics, including power user friendliness.

Yes, they’re talking about how the GNOME one is poorly designed, not the macOS one.

There's this pattern of taking stable functional things and then hobbling it, stripping it of features, and giving it clunky ux patterns in the name of imitating some direction apple inc has taken.

It's a really annoying pattern and it really needs to stop

Yes but my point was that the Apple direction, in this case, is both far more easy to use and more suitable for power users. You can efficiently navigate the apple file dialogue with the keyboard (e.g. press '~' for tab-completable paths in your home dir; ctrl+N -> recently used folders; Cmd+F for what is basically a document DB search across your whole filesystem etc).

Yes, but there's no inherent reason why there can't be something similar or even more powerful in GNOME and KDE. This is not an argument about "who is superior", picking camps or "who copies whom". Linux clearly has a higher ratio of power users than OS X so it'd make sense to have UX catering for them.

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