GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 319874
Folder chooser dialog is confusing
Last modified: 2014-10-11 02:57:41 UTC
Distribution/Version: Ubuntu The dialog for choosing a folder to extract files to is confusing. It is unclear whether the 'Open' button serves to expand the selected folder in the file list or select the highlighted folder for the calling application. I suggest this button be labelled differently. Suggestions: 'Accept' 'Choose' 'Select'. I wasn't sure whether to choose the folder I want from its parent, or to navigate to its contents and then accept the dialog. I think there needs to be a way to choose the folder that the browser is currently in. Use case: I want to see the contents of a folder before extracting files to it.
Agreed. I think that perhaps a different sort of dialog would be better suited to selecting folders. For example, it might be more productive to have a a tree of folders, similar to the tree view in Nautilus. That way, it is obvious when you are expanding a folder, they are easily selected, and it is much easier to navigate.
I think the filechooser authors fixed this now. I close the bug now, however feel free to reopen it if the current filechooser is still confusing to you.
Having used file-roller 2.16.0 on Fedora Core 6, I believe that this problem still exists. To reiterate via an example: if my home directory is open, and no other directory is selected, hitting open will result in /home/user/ being used. However, if I then select a directory (without opening it), it will then use the selected folder. Perhaps a problem this raises is that if you go up the 'trail' at the top (that shows the parent directories), it can also be confusing. For example, I want to save something in my home directory, but I accidentally navigate to the Desktop directory. I then assume I can just go back to /home/user using the 'trail', but this is not the case. Since going back in the trail automatically selects the directory that you came from (i.e. going to user from Desktop using the trail will result in Desktop being selected), you actually have to go to /home in order to select /home/user. [Although you can, in this case, just use the Places down the left hand side, this is clearly not viable for most directories] I hope I've made my point clear!
Looking at 2.16, I think it's still the same. Doing Extract then 'Other' from the folder dropdown gives me the same ambiguous filechoose dialog.
Agree with #1 and #3. And I think I have one additional case where the folder chooser is confusing/clumsy, in Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft (how can I tell what version of gnome/gtk/... it has?). Steps: 1. Open a folder chooser, e.g. by pressing PrintScr which in Ubuntu asks you to select a directory, select browse for other in the combobox. 2. Assume that you really want to use whatever directory that the file chooser dialog initially opens. 3. Pressing Open now does not close the dialog. It also does not inform me about why or what I can do about it. To actually use the current directory I do like this: 4. use the "trail" to go to parent directory. After reading #3 I know that this is enough, the directory that I came from will be selected automatically and Open now works (how to tell since it was never grayed?). But I did not know this before, so then I would have: 5. Double-click the directory that you just went out from, to go back into it. 6. Click Open, which now works. The only reason for Open-button not accepting the initial directory that I can think of is that to reduce confusion (is selected or current directory used) one is forced to select something. I can think of two ways of solving this: a) when no directory is selected in the current one (e.g. the initial state when dialog is launched) the "current" directory is used if one clicks Open. b) use a plain directory tree view instead. Might keep the "trail"/"location text box" on top for compatibility and ability to paste a string into it. Bookmarks should also remain on the left. I suspect other people may object to a), and perhaps you have "been down that road". b) requires more work but I only see benefits of it.
I've been running into the same situation as erik, and it's quite annoying. Personally, I'd go for solution a (I think that's what other Desktops do), but b would be ok too.
What about to use the idea described in Bug 160260 – Default "Extract" location, ie the last used location will be used as default.
In file roller 3.2.1 when I open an archive and click extract, I get a GTK+ folder selection dialog with Extract being the affirmative button text, so I think this issue has been fixed. What do you think? Can we close this as OBSOLETE of FIXED?
*** Bug 412086 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Marking as fixed, as no one was against it in the last 3 years.