I originally raised this as an idea on the Ubuntu brainstorm, but was told it should be reported as a bug by the brainstorm admin (the brainstorm is here: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/21745/).  Then the Ubuntu bug people said to report it here, so here I am reporting it a third time.

When you click on an executable text file, such as a script to which you've just made a change which you want to test, a dialogue appears asking if you want to open it, run it, run it in a terminal, or cancel. I think this dialogue is severely flawed.

Why aren't the two run buttons next to each other? Why isn't cancel on the far left where it usually is? What if I want to edit the file instead of displaying it (I know the Display button /actually/ opens it for editing, but it doesn't say that)? Why can't I tell it to stop asking me every time I click on the file, if I always want to do the same thing? And why is the dialogue so cluttered?

My solution is as follows:

- Move Cancel to the far left, because that's where we've come to expect it to be
- Rename the Display button Display/Edit, because that's what it's for
- Get rid of the Run in Terminal option, but put a "Run in Terminal" tick box under the "Run" button, because the dialogue is cluttered
- Add a "Remember my Choice" tick box

It occurs to me that this is probably trivial to fix - could it be a paper-cut? I don't know if you could say it effects lots of users, but it does happen on any executable file. I know that the last thing my mum wants to see when she clicks an executable file is a scary technical sounding dialogue - if we could simplify it (by reducing the number of buttons) and give her a remember my choice option so that she doesn't get bothered with it every time, she'd be a lot happier.