Hi,

I have used the development version for some time now and there are many improvements which I really appreciate. However, I have a couple of questions about two of the dialogs which have changed.

1. What is the advantage of the new file selection dialog? I find it much more difficult to use (even after having stumbled across the ctrl+L facility).

2. Why has the scale factor (ratio) has been removed from the image scale dialog? I personally found it very useful.

Keith

Hi,

Keith Goatman writes:

I have used the development version for some time now and there are many improvements which I really appreciate. However, I have a couple of questions about two of the dialogs which have changed.

1. What is the advantage of the new file selection dialog? I find it much more difficult to use (even after having stumbled across the ctrl+L facility).

Despite the fact that it has a sane API (which the old widgets didn't have), it also has a number of useability improvements like bookmarks, mime-type icons and the ability to mount volumes. It also features a Win32 backend and in the future it will allow GIMP to work on remote files (if we figure out how to use gnome-vfs w/o pulling in too many dependencies). It is also expected that Search capabilities will be added in the future (see
http://primates.ximian.com/~federico/docs/file-chooser-extension-spec/)

If you are missing keyboard navigation in the file chooser, you might want to try a recent GTK+ development snapshot. There have been some improvements in that area.

2. Why has the scale factor (ratio) has been removed from the image scale dialog? I personally found it very useful.

It hasn't been removed but got integrated with the units menu. This has been suggested by users a while ago.

Sven

Sven Neumann wrote:

Despite the fact that it has a sane API (which the old widgets didn't have), it also has a number of useability improvements like bookmarks, mime-type icons and the ability to mount volumes. It also features a Win32 backend and in the future it will allow GIMP to work on remote files (if we figure out how to use gnome-vfs w/o pulling in too many dependencies). It is also expected that Search capabilities will be added in the future (see
http://primates.ximian.com/~federico/docs/file-chooser-extension-spec/)

If you are missing keyboard navigation in the file chooser, you might want to try a recent GTK+ development snapshot. There have been some improvements in that area.

Yes all the features you mention above are technically very nice, and make it more in line with the standard windows file dialog. However, at the moment it is just plain annoying because it takes longer to select the file I want. Since this is a common task it makes using the new version frustrating to use when I don't dnd from my browser. I will try the latest GTK development snapshot to see if it's any better.

2. Why has the scale factor (ratio) has been removed from the image scale dialog? I personally found it very useful.

It hasn't been removed but got integrated with the units menu. This has been suggested by users a while ago.

Thanks, I'd not found that. The previous dialog suited the way I work better, but being able to select the percentage is OK.

Keith

Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 17:00:30 +0000 From: Keith Goatman
Cc: gimp-devel
Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] Dialog layouts in 2.2pre1

Sven Neumann wrote:

Despite the fact that it has a sane API (which the old widgets didn't have), it also has a number of useability improvements like bookmarks, mime-type icons and the ability to mount volumes. It also features a Win32 backend and in the future it will allow GIMP to work on remote files (if we figure out how to use gnome-vfs w/o pulling in too many dependencies). It is also expected that Search capabilities will be added in the future (see
http://primates.ximian.com/~federico/docs/file-chooser-extension-spec/)

If you are missing keyboard navigation in the file chooser, you might want to try a recent GTK+ development snapshot. There have been some improvements in that area.

It really is a lot more bearable if you can get a more recent version of the file chooser with type ahead find.

The changes are good in a variety of ways but unfortunately for old users it is better in very different ways from what worked well in the old dialog, it is six of one half a dozen of the other. On the upside the API and infrastructure has been cleaned up so there is room for modifications and improvements and it is being worked on.

Yes all the features you mention above are technically very nice, and make it more in line with the standard windows file dialog. However, at the moment it is just plain annoying because it takes longer to select the file I want. Since this is a common task it makes using the new version frustrating to use when I don't dnd from my browser. I will try the latest GTK development snapshot to see if it's any better.

It is a secret conspiracy to kill off the file chooser and make everyone use Drag and Drop and open files using the file manager!!! (Believe it or not I'm actually half serious about this)

- Alan H.

Hi Sven,

Sven Neumann wrote:

Despite the fact that it has a sane API (which the old widgets didn't have), it also has a number of useability improvements like bookmarks, mime-type icons and the ability to mount volumes. It also features a Win32 backend and in the future it will allow GIMP to work on remote files (if we figure out how to use gnome-vfs w/o pulling in too many dependencies). It is also expected that Search capabilities will be added in the future (see
http://primates.ximian.com/~federico/docs/file-chooser-extension-spec/)

If you are missing keyboard navigation in the file chooser, you might want to try a recent GTK+ development snapshot. There have been some improvements in that area.

The functionality of the new dialog is clearly the remit of the gtk developers. However, since the choice has been made to use it, it's affect on the usability of gimp is relevant (and the lack of filters, mentioned below, is a gimp issue).

I've tried the lastest snapshot and the differences are minor. It seems bizarre that an additional keypress is necessary to bring up the text dialog box. Added to which the file completion only matches the start of the name: using the old dialog typing "p*.png [tab]" would filter the list of files as expected; the ability to use wildcards was very useful.

The only image type filter currently listed in the drop down menu is native xcf files.

Keith

Hi,

Keith Goatman writes:

I've tried the lastest snapshot and the differences are minor. It seems bizarre that an additional keypress is necessary to bring up the text dialog box.

With GTK+ HEAD you should almost always get away without using the text dialog box, as you call it, because the file chooser supports typeahead.

The only image type filter currently listed in the drop down menu is native xcf files.

That's a bug in the 2.2 pre-release that has been fixed shortly after the release. It also used to work correctly in the later 2.1.x releases.

Sven

Sven Neumann wrote:

With GTK+ HEAD you should almost always get away without using the text dialog box, as you call it, because the file chooser supports typeahead.

Granted, but it still doesn't support handy wildcards like the former dialog did.

Keith

Hi,

Keith Goatman writes:

Sven Neumann wrote:

With GTK+ HEAD you should almost always get away without using the text dialog box, as you call it, because the file chooser supports typeahead.

Granted, but it still doesn't support handy wildcards like the former dialog did.

Yes. It works somewhat less good for the 5% of our users who figured out the expert features of the old file-selection dialog. I guess though that the other 95% will prefer the new one. Of course I've only made up these numbers but I think it's a reasonably good guess.

Sven