GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 777694
Back and Forward shortcuts don't work in "Open File" dialog
Last modified: 2018-05-02 18:00:43 UTC
Back shortcut (Alt+Left arrow) and Forward shortcut (Alt+Right arrow) don't work in "Open File" dialog, however, Up Folder shortcut (Alt+Up arrow) and Down folder (Alt+Down arrow) do work. Steps to reproduce: 1. Open any application which can trigger an open file dialog. For instance: evince or gnome web. 2. Navigate a little through your file system. 3. Check that, while Up and down work using Alt + Down/Up arrows, Go Back and Go Forward don't.
Indeed, this would be nice. It is not quite trivial, though, as I can see no indications that GtkFileChooserWidget keeps any history of where it has been, and of course Back/Forward actions would require the addition of plumbing for that. Once that's done, then adding keybinding signals and implementations for them should be nothing in comparison. If anyone would like to try writing a patch, that would be very welcome!
Created attachment 357149 [details] [review] FileChooserWidget: Add back- and forward-folder Add keybinding signals for Alt+Left and Alt+Right and make these walk back or forward in a list of the folders that have been selected. Only consider folders that have been selected since this FCW was last show()n. The list is cleared on unmap() since it does not seem useful, but does seem confusing, to open this FCW again later and find that it can go back and forward to things you probably don’t remember, etc. Of course, each new folder selected in any way is added to the history, after the current pos, truncating any old ‘future’ that it might’ve had. — Well, I just couldn't stop myself. Please test this, find all the cases I didn't think of, and compose a deafining chorus of enthusiastic reviews. Thanks!
Review of attachment 357149 [details] [review]: ::: gtk/gtkfilechooserwidget.c @@ +356,3 @@ + GList *folder_history; + GList *folder_history_pos; + gboolean folder_history_moving; This should be in the flags as a single bit.
A more general question is whether up/down/back/forward should have buttons for mouse activation, not just keyboard accelerators.
(In reply to Daniel Boles from comment #4) > A more general question is whether up/down/back/forward should have buttons > for mouse activation, not just keyboard accelerators. That will have to wait until we have a better path bar widget.
I did wonder whether eventually the back/forward functionality would be better placed in GtkPathBar. But for now, it seemed more sensible just to implement it where it's directly wanted.
Review of attachment 357149 [details] [review]: I maintain that being half-asleep on the bus in the morning is where all the real ideas occur. Here are the latest things that popped into my head: ::: gtk/gtkfilechooserwidget.c @@ +4094,3 @@ + priv->folder_history = NULL; + priv->folder_history_pos = NULL; + g_assert (!priv->folder_history_moving); This should probably be above the g_list_free_full() since if it's TRUE, it indicates the FCW is going to try to use the list imminently. @@ +7997,3 @@ + + file = priv->folder_history_pos->data; + priv->folder_history_moving = TRUE; I need to test whether these handlers can be re-entered while folder_history_moving is TRUE, due to holding down the keybinding, etc. If not, then assert that it's FALSE. If yes, then simply return if it's already TRUE. @@ +8003,3 @@ + FALSE, FALSE, &error); + + if (error) also need to check what happens in this case - it might be better to keep trying to go back/forward while there are nodes left in that direction, and show a combined error at the end. e.g. if your history contained a bunch of entries from a now-disconnected device, you don't want to (guessing, at best; I've not specifically tested this bit yet) have to step through them 1 by 1 to get further back/forward to usable entries. In any case, nodes for which an error occurs should be removed from the list; they're not useful anymore.
Created attachment 357485 [details] [review] FileChooserWidget: Add back- and forward-folder Add keybinding signals for Alt+Left and Alt+Right and make these walk back or forward in a list of the folders that have been selected. Only consider folders that have been selected since this FCW was last show()n. The list is cleared on unmap() since it does not seem useful, but does seem confusing, to open this FCW again later and find that it can go back and forward to things you probably don’t remember, etc. Of course, each new folder selected in any way is added to the history, after the current pos, truncating any old ‘future’ that it might’ve had. -- This converts folder_history_moving to guint:1 and exits if it is already TRUE when trying to begin a move, which testing shows can happen by holding the keys. I didn't add all the error handling stuff yet. On the simplistic cases I've tried here, it will happily go Back/Forward to now-unmounted directories, and it just goes to the most nested directory that is still valid. That may not be the best way, but it's not crashy either. I haven't contrived a hard error on any history directory yet. Ideas on what - if anything - to do there are welcome. I think now you'd just get an error and no folder selected, then could carry on. But again, I've not really dived into that side of things yet. Reviews of what's already here would be much appreciated.
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/issues/743.