My previous article on file dialogs generated a lot of feedback and I got various responses from all kinds of people. I’ll go over the feedback I’ve received, the more data I’ve received, and the results generated by the last discussion.
In my previous post, I never discussed Windows Vista as it is not a copy, but several people contacted me with screenshots and explained the system a bit.
Let’s take a first look:
There’s a lot going on here. At the top we have a crumb-based index browser stolen from GTK, but of course this dialog is better than what GTK offers. It also provides a refresh button and has a new directory dropdown menu. There is also a back and forward button to jump anywhere while searching for something. It’s a nice addition, albeit a search box. Not sure where the file is? So call! A nice new intuitive feature (still taken from Mac OS X).
Below that, we have options to change what is shown and the style in which it is presented. The new index button is also clearly visible. Then on the left we have a quick list of locations, as in older versions of Windows, but now in Windows 6 you can add and delete them to your heart’s content. I’m not sure if you can rename them, readers please write about it. Next, we have the Windows 4+ standard file list with the ability to change the appearance as expected. And of course to complete it nicely, we have the file input box to jump to filenames quickly and of course write a path to act as expert users like us want. File management features are also available.
But wait, we haven’t finished yet, check this out:
As you can see, the “Folders” section on the left can be expanded to provide a tree view to browse your system. This borrows only the directory browser (next to a file browser) from Windows 3, but is presented in a more robust tree view. It seems a bit odd to see directories in both the directory and file browsers, but that should please everyone. Since directories are more difficult to navigate and have to jump to historical directories to find files, many people have been annoyed by Microsoft for combining the two in Windows 4+.
It seems that in this new version, Microsoft is trying to please everyone, offering every possible browsing opportunity and I appreciate them for that. I was wondering if you can turn off the directory view in the main file list pane. If anyone knows, please write.
I’d like to play around with this personally to see how KDE 3.5 stacks up against file dialogue, but this looks really solid. The only problem seems to be that they are stuck in some nonsense of their virtual directories, with the real tree seeing Desktop / User and Desktop / Documents when there are Users / User / Desktop and Users / User / Documents. I guess we can’t have everything.
Next, we will revisit GTK. Except for one to my last article about how bad GTK is, all responses agreed with me. Some even gave demonstrations showing that this was worse than I know.
One person who wrote in disagreement presented some interesting data. No, he was not a developer who told me that GNOME / GTK employees improved it and he actually disagreed with what I described as bad. He wrote to say he was completely different dialogue!
Let’s take a look at our first screenshot:
As you can see, a location bar is provided with everything we are familiar with so one can jump in quickly and it works well. The quick positions on the left are also combined in one place so you can even add and remove built-in ones. Still not sure about renaming it. But wait, there’s more!
There is also logical autocomplete instead of autocomplete where you type / usr and end, as shown above. / usr /src. I wanted the source of these changes, maybe if they are from GTK or newer or development version of GNOME. He was said to have had these dialogs since he built his computer years ago, and that was from an usability patch he installed. Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure where he got them so I’m still trying to replace FireFox and GAIM on my machine.
Let’s think a little bit, although there are usability patches to improve GTK / GNOME greatly, but we still have no clue that these are in the official versions. Perhaps if we start boycotting GTK apps, we’ll see developers doing something logical for once. It would be nice, if not as slow as molasses.
Next, we come to the Qt file open dialog. Last time I showed a preview of what Qt 4.3 has to offer. I don’t seem to have a limit for replies thanking me for alerting them to the impending disaster.
A friend of mine, who has a decent application written using GTK, recently told me how he added file browsing support and how ruthless he was, how much time he had to spend writing a new file open dialog from scratch. one was built. He told me he was thinking of switching to Qt because he heard how superior this was and how he wouldn’t have to endure so much stupidity just because there are rational things in it. But seeing what Qt 4.3 was planning, he immediately dropped all thoughts he had, as he thought he didn’t need to switch to GTK and reapply the file open dialog. Remember that GTK originally dismantled Qt and we didn’t need to flip tables, and we should pay attention to the $ 0.02 we got from developers who couldn’t even figure out how to write a sane file dialog.
Another good friend of mine took the task of spreading this word as much as possible. He mentioned this in # qt on Freenode, an IRC channel with many Qt developers. They were said to be angry when they saw what changes were planned.
It seems that all these criticisms came back to Trolltech, and Ben Meyer quickly got to work to fix the situation.
What happened in Qt 4.3’s warehouse as of last Friday:
As you can see, we’re basically back to the state Qt 4 had, except for the quick positions added to the left. It allows quick locations to add and remove and settings are saved. Unfortunately, no renaming, so I’ll come across a lot of directories labeled “src” which probably confuse me. Also, when using the file name box to browse, here is the error in the old Qt 4.3’s file save name box. If I enter “/ usr / src” it will switch to this path, but the name box will contain “src” stupidly. It seems like he forgot to do S_ISDIR (st_mode) on the stat (path) before filling the box blindly with basename (path) when the enter key is pressed.
I have great faith in Trolltech guys, these guys care and fix things right away. I hope they realize this and fix it before 4.3 is ready. The nice thing about the new version is that you never need to refresh it as the dialog index watches for changes. But don’t worry, the event seems to light up quickly and not be late for anything. I even put it in a directory of 20,000 files and instantly viewed it.
Finally, regarding the KDE 3.5 dialogue, I wrote how it was the best thing I reviewed last, my only disappointment was not to rename it. However, I have been informed that you can rename it with this. When you right click on a file, the rename option is labeled as “properties”. Once the features arise, you can rename them right away, but the added benefit is that you can also click the checkboxes to change the permissions on a file as well! I had never thought of looking at properties before because I thought it would just give me information on file, not actually let me change anything. Maybe a better nomenclature should be made there to make it more intuitive, but now it’s clear that the KDE 3.5 dialog is definitely the superior dialog I have studied.
I really like the idea of adding a search feature though, and the crumb supports are questionable in their usefulness. So I will throw it between Windows 6 and KDE 3.5 as to which one is the best until I get a chance to take over Vista.
However, KDE 4 will probably add a search to its open files and I expect the smart guys at Trolltech to improve further if they get enough feedback.
If you want the developers of your favorite API / OS / Desktop Environment to improve, why not point them to this and previous file dialog reviews? The guys at Trolltech are definitely open to feedback. Just make sure you’re ready to be rejected if you try to talk to the GTK / GNOME guys, they don’t care.
