It seems that the filechoose is now parsing /etc/fstab (just a guess) and pulling out any mount points it can find. There are then all added to the top of the bookmark widget and result in my real bookmarks being pushed out of sight.

This is a serious retrograde as far a functionality goes. The PRIMARY function of this dialogue requires acces to the bookmark list. This is now out of sight and requires extra scrolling. This is clearly couter productive.

Some other points you probably ought consider :

1/ There are many entries in fstab that are not generally valid. I have several mount points for devices like usb key, cameras (no just mine, several) network nfs mount points (smb and nfs) for other machines I maintain, mount points for backup partitions ..... These are all valid entries that I need to retain but certainly have no place cluttering my filechooser bookmarks widget.

2/ I have more than one device related to some mount points, eg /mnt/usb (due to different usb device names) all these appear as "usb" and seem to all relate to the first occurance in fstab. This feature is broken.

3/ Since it seems the list includes removable devices but not linux natives maybe this list should be reduces to one entry that expands when clicked. "Removable media" , for example.

4/ It seems the desired functionality is not entirely thought through at this time. Most of these entries fail to mount anything most of the time (no media, no usbkey , network target not connected) . Despite this they fill the bookmark widget rendering it a lot less usable.

5/ Maybe these mount points could be condensed to a list that expands on click, that would aleviate the clutter issue.


This interface never was ergonomic outside of a couple of commonly used directories stored as bookmarks. You take that away and it just got worse.


Though click to mount may be a useful feature in this context I think it should be secondary to accessing the main fs . In the absense of a treeview , direct acces to the bookmarks is essential.

Thanks

GTK+ is not parsing /etc/fstab.

And I guess someone who just plugged in a usb stick to save something there expects to find the stick in the dialog just as much as you expect your bookmarks.

I did not say such a mount point should not be present. I just said there are too many entires and that they are pushing my bookmarks out of view. I also suggested a means to reduce thier impact by collapsing the list.

If your stick user expects to see the mount point in the left pane there he would have added it to his bookmarks. That's the whole idea of this interface. That's not my concept.

Tbe fundemental premise of the filechooser was declaring that "most users" only use two or three common places to open and save files and that the bookmark paradigm was the new efficient way to provide that access.

About 2-3 years back, I took some considerable time to start a detailed discussion on whether that premise was valid and got shot down in flames.

The current developements which have added home, desktop, multiple network and  mountable media mount points to that list and pushed the user's bookmarks out of sight clearly prove that I was right to question that premise.

It will now take another 2 or 3 years for you to accept my suggestion that we need a tree view instead of a one dimensional array of fixed entries. Space for a few book marks above the file tree would be and asset.

The current interface with two listboxes is overloaded and is becoming less and less usable. If you wish to support this level of functionality you will utimately need to expand the simple two pane approach, not just graft more features into the list.

In the meantime I have hacked gtkfilesystem.c to remove the volume icon cruft and added my usb mount point to my newly visible bookmarks. gtkfilechooserdefault.c got rid of the superfluous "desktop" entry.

I now have my bookmarks back where I can see and use them.

Disregarding the matter of the file chooser sometimes including volumes in the list that are not useful (obscure service partitions, non-mounted drives in combination with a non-polling hal), I see three options:

1. Attempt to optimize the dialog. For example by removing the "Places" label above the shortcuts pane. My file manager (read: Nautilus, Thunar or pcmanfm) doesn't have a label at the according place, and it's still obvious enough. Or reconsider the Find and Recent files items, for example replace Find with an entry beside the pathbar (bread crumb), which in this case would even make searching more effective.

2. Make it possible to prevent the file chooser from displaying removables and shares, via the context menu, just the way you can already toggle the display of hidden files.

3. Replace the removable volumes and network shares with an item such as "Temporary media" or somesuch, which upon activation shows those items in the list of files.

if you don't want to see volumes, udisks supports hiding them by setting some mount options.