GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 327733
path bar badly short of space, give it the full width
Last modified: 2006-02-25 02:47:32 UTC
The key feature of the path bar concept seems to be the ability to click on any part of the path to jump to it. This is fine when the buttons are visible but loses all meaning if it is necessary the scroll left or right to find the button you need. Since only system directories tend to have nice short names like /opt/usr/bin this means the bar quickly becomes of limitted usability on a real desktop system. It is crying out for more space. It's even been argued in other bugs that adding a "(...)" button would take too much room ! The most obvious solution would seem to be to extend it the full width of the dialog and lower the bookmark window. The current layout seriously detracts from the usefulness of this key feature. regards. Other information:
Yeah, that would work nicely. Can you please cook a little patch to do it? The path bar gets put in its place in gtk+/gtk/gtkfilechooserdefault.c:file_pane_create(). You may want to pull out the code that creates the path bar from that function, and move it up to browse_widgets_create().
thanks for pointing me to the relevant code. c is not my most fluent language but I'll see if I can shift it. Glad you find the idea suitable.
To me, this sounds like a bad idea. The path bar logically belongs with the file list that it operates on - it has nothing to do with the bookmark list.
we will have to wait and see this in action, but i share soerens scepticism
Created attachment 59043 [details] [review] patch to give path_bar full width of dlg Since all these dlgs are fundementally for selecting a path I dont think there will be any confusion as to what the path_bar refers to. However avoiding the need for using the scrollers vastly increases efficiency and ease of use, especially for touchpad users disabled access. If the concept gets a generally positive reception I will tidy up the layout with respect to the file pane , esp. for the save dlg. (currently best viewed in file open mode)
Created attachment 59425 [details] [review] cleaner patch file, same code better screen layout if combined with bookmark-label.patch http://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=59419&action=view and/or save-expander.patch http://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=59421&action=view
Created attachment 59501 [details] screenshot of filechooser in save mode screenshot of modified save-mode filechooser The principal thing to note is the full width path_bar. As many user have the habit on long file names the need for the width is clear. Many themes also markedly increase the space reqd by the buttons of the bar from the plain Jane look shown here. This shot combines a number of small mods that I think make it clearer and easier to use that have been detailed elsewhere. Notably adding "bookmarks" label and hiding the expander and (disabled) combo. impressions please.
I'll review these patches shortly; please give me a few days as I'm quite busy at work.
Fixed in the HEAD branch. 2006-02-24 Federico Mena Quintero <federico@novell.com> * gtk/gtkfilechooserdefault.c (shortcuts_list_create): Make the column header visible, and make it be "_Places". Changed the accessible object name to Places as well. Fixes bug #331306. (file_pane_create): Do not create the path bar and "create folder" button here... (browse_widgets_create): ... but create them here instead. This moves the path bar to be above both the hpaned, giving it the full width of the dialog. Fixes bug #327733.