GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 159616
"Unknown file type" when saving with not file extension
Last modified: 2004-11-30 04:01:52 UTC
1. Open/create a file which you would like to (re-)save 2. (Re-)save the image as a "GIMP XCF image" - but do not include the .xcf in the filename 3. Click Save Expected: GIMP recognizes that the file extension is missing and appends it to the file name or alternatively, saves it without the filename Current: "GIMP Messaage" displayed: "Saving 'C:/path to/file' failed: Unknown file type" Adding the .xcf extension to the filename allows the user to save their file without further error. Binary installer obtained through sourceforge projecy gimp-win referred to by the gimp.org website. gimp-2.2-pre2-setup.zip / 7735053 bytes / 2004-11-21 06:29 gtk+-2.4.10-20041001-setup.zip / 4049243 bytes / 2004-10-13 11:01 Not sure what componant this goes under. Filing as General.
Created attachment 34177 [details] Screenshot Screenshot of error in question on my sister's computer.
But you didn't select the XCF file format at all. The screenshot clearly shows that the filetype selection is set to "By Extension" and the filename that was entered doesn't have an extension. This is clearly the right behaviour. Perhaps we could try to improve the message dialog somewhat but the behaviour is entirely correct.
Upon further investigation, it appears that you are right, this is not technically a bug... But it is poor layout design. Why was the format drop down menu moved away from it's traditional location and replaced by a filter that looks striking similar? It is not intuitive at all that "[+] Select File Type (By Extension)" is actually the format which you would like to save as. One would naturally assume that the visible drop down box serves this function. If anything I would assume that the "Select File Type" referres to "Selecting" something making me thing of something like a filter. The completely unlabled drop down box at the bottom used to select the format to save as and there is no indication at all that this had changed. This should definetly be fixed if we want to keep people from getting confused. My sister and I have been using GIMP for a few years now and I am a programmer myself; if we got confused trying to save a file, we are probably not alone. Thanks for the clarification and my apologies for the false bug. Should this bug request stay open for the requested interface clarification or should a new bug be filed? (needs to block 2.2 stable or people WILL get confused)
The file-type menu has been a constant source of confusion and its use has always been discouraged. That's why the format selection has been moved to the expander. The file filter is part of the GTK+ file-chooser widget and it's appearance is not under our control. We can't add a label or a tooltip to it. But it's standard in all GTK+ applications so I don't expect major usability problems. I don't think we are going to change this and we will certainly not block the 2.2 release for it.
Ok, your project, your decision. For versions that I distribute on the 2.2 release, I will apply my own set of patches to fix any usability issues. Part of my distribution strategy is to show that GNU/Linux applications can be just as usable and intuitive (and preferably more so) than other popular platforms. A patch for something like this would be minor, but worth it for my users. Thanks for all your work!
I don't see how this can be changed with a minor patch. However I can only politely ask you not to patch GIMP since that will make it even harder for your users. The user manual won't apply any longer and if the file-chooser in GIMP looks and feels differently than in other GTK+ applications, that would definitely be a major usability problem. Perhaps you want to ask the GTK+ developers to add a tooltip to the file filter to make it's use more apparent?
Reverting back to 2.0 behavior would be enough for most of my users. Saving as a specific file format was more intuitive in that release.
You aren't seriously suggesting to go back to the GtkFileSelection dialog, are you? This is a new dialog, backed by a completely different GTK+ widget. There is no way we would revert back to the 2.0 file selection. We had tons of legitimate complaints about it and so far this is first about the new one. Noone said that there wouldn't be a problem but so far no solution has been proposed as how to improve the situation.
I could imagine that it would help to entirely remove the file-filter combobox from the Save dialog. It isn't very useful when saving a file but it does of course make a lot of sense in the Load dialog. Perhaps we should also consider to remove the Preview in the save dialog to further reduce the clutter.
If the filter were labled or removed and the file format selection were made back into a drop down box as most people are used to (and preferably labled) it would be a great improvement. In fact, if we wanted this software to be the most intuitive, we might simply throw the filter out all together and have the format selection also serve as a filter. It supprises me that this cannot be done. Thanks again for your time.
Created attachment 34194 [details] [review] patch to simplify the save dialog This patch simplifies the save dialog by removing the seldomly useful file-filter combo and the file preview. A few people might see this as a regression but I tend to prefer the less confusing dialog over the full-featured one.
I don't see how combining the two could work since usually the file selection part of the dialog is hidden. After the user has created a couple of bookmarks for the favorite save location, he/she will almost never use the file-selection part of the dialog. So putting the file-type selection there would not work. Oh, and could you please stop thanking me for my time.
My apologies for my "excessive gratitude." Bug trackers aren't exactly the ideal place for politeness. I still don't understand why it wouldn't work, after all it has been done for years in other projects - but I will just leave this to your best judgement and retire to my other projects and patches which I am more familiar with. Sorry for the confusion.