Hi everyone!

I know that this probably isn't the right place to discuss this, but I'll ask in the hopes that someone will point me in the right direction. Which developer list would be appropriate for such an email?

I am well aware that the new file open dialog has been a topic of contentious debate, and my goal isn't to arouse people's tempers. I like neither the new (GIMP 2.2) nor the old (GIMP 2.0) file open dialog; neither offers much flexibility. After looking at the dialog in jEdit (www.jedit.org), it is obvious what features are lacking. It combines the best features of a GUI and a bash shell:

* Like a GUI, it always shows which files are in the current directory. * Like a GUI, it allows directories to be added to favorites -- so it doesn't take 250 years to get to a frequently used directory that isn't close to programs/gimp/2.0/bin. * Like a bash shell (or whatever shell you folks use), it has a text input for file names that allows tab completion. Furthermore, typing part of a directory name in the current directory and hitting / takes you into that directory. Typing ../ takes you up a directory, as is logical. The filename which would be expanded if tab were pressed is always highlighted; hitting Enter when the correct filename is highlighted opens that file.

I have two questions:

1) Would people like a file open dialog incorporating the above features? 2) With the above features as part of a requirement, how difficult would it be to program such a dialog? I have been programming for upwards of five years and am currently learning GTK, but I have never programmed such a dialog before. I want to see if it is something that I, given my current skill set, could do.

Best regards, Matt

Michael Schumacher wrote:

Could you point to a screenshot that shows this dialog?

Certainly. http://www.princeton.edu/~mplough/tmp/fileopen.png .

* Like a GUI, it always shows which files are in the current directory.

Like the GTK+ file chooser :)

Yep! I was just contrasting the behavior with a shell, where you have to type ls to do so. :)

* Like a GUI, it allows directories to be added to favorites -- so it doesn't take 250 years to get to a frequently used directory that isn't close to programs/gimp/2.0/bin.

Like the GTK+ file chooser :)

Cool! I hadn't noticed that, even though there was a big shiny "Add" button.

* Like a bash shell (or whatever shell you folks use), it has a text input for file names that allows tab completion. Furthermore, typing part of a directory name in the current directory and hitting / takes you into that directory. Typing ../ takes you up a directory, as is logical. The filename which would be expanded if tab were pressed is always highlighted; hitting Enter when the correct filename is highlighted opens that file.

Ctrl+l. This is the only feature I missed at first, but now I'm hardly use the keyboard anymore because of the features above.

Would you mind elaborating a little on this? The only GTK program I use at this point is the GIMP; I'm on Windows and my video card manufacturer doesn't seem to care a whole lot about Linux.

Matt