8 ms·

Recursive search instead of type-ahead search within one directory in the file picker is criminally terrible. I don't think there is any implementation of a fil

Recursive search instead of type-ahead search within one directory in the file picker is criminally terrible. I don't think there is any implementation of a file picker that behaves like this (other than Gtk's).

skrap 6y ago
Is this https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2366 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2366 ? It really bothers me as well.
- kaszanka 6y ago
  Yes. As you can see, this is by design.
  - philsnow 6y ago
    This is in my experience emblematic of GNOME in general. I've shaken the dust off my sandals and don't use anything gnome-y if I can avoid it. Here's the thing that convinced me, a while back: https://wiki.gnome.org/Attic/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#Why_doesn.27t_the_screensaver_preferences_tool_allow_me_to_change_the_settings_for_the_theme.3F https://wiki.gnome.org/Attic/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAske... I'm sure there's people here who are long-time contributors and/or supporters. Just ignore me, I'm not your target audience. ... I'm really not sure who your target audience is, though.
    - Renevith 6y ago
      Holy crap. It reads like a parody written by someone who read this thread and article. I was thinking it couldn't be as bad as people we're saying, but it's worse!
    - throwdbaaway 6y ago
      > I'm really not sure who your target audience is, though. We should ask Havoc Pennington about this, he must have names for all the personas that he came up with, after reading "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum": https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2002-December/msg00482.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2002-Dece... I actually have a copy of the book, and it is indeed a good book. The problem is that it somehow empowers GNOME developers to keep creating/maintaining/rewriting broken software, all in the name of "usability".
- baybal2 6y ago
  > Free software development is not a democracy, and does not get driven by polls. Features and bugs are introduced by those who show up, within a community that works towards a shared goal. And it is exactly to let themselves yell that, they work hard to alienate few normal devs left in the project. I understood now that Gnome 3.0 was from the start Redhat's fully intentional attempt to appropriate the project, and is not dissimilar to Microsoft's embrace, extend, extinguish. 1. Get command of some more abandoned parts of the project. 2. Push a series of guaranteedly unpopular sharp direction changes which will lead to loss of devs. 3. As devs leave, you get more reinforcement to your casus belli, saying that "nobody maintains this pile of garbage, so now I am taking it over too" 4. Rinse, and repeat.
  - stretchcat 6y ago
    This sure seems accurate to me, from what I've personally observed, but I don't understand what motive they might have. What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it?
    - baud147258 6y ago
      > What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it? they'd be the only left able to offer (paid) support?
      - stretchcat 6y ago
        Does GNOME really bring in much paid support momey? In the past I have worked at a company that did have RHEL5 workstations with GNOME by default, but everybody I knew treated that as a joke and sshed into the workstations from their (Windows) Thinkpads or Macbooks. The desktop software on those workstations was unwanted and unused.
        lmm 6y ago
        That sounds like the ideal situation for RedHat's business model.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- klodolph 6y ago
  I use Linux, macOS, and Windows on a regular basis. I use mostly default settings, only a couple changes. Over time my settings move closer and closer to defaults. I tell people to upgrade their OS (with a couple exceptions). I was on-board with GNOME 3 when it came out (I was an Arch user at the time, but I’m in remission now). The GTK file chooser dialog is easily the most garbage piece of fucking shit. Honestly, sometimes, if I want to post something online I just copy the file to my Mac first just to avoid dealing with the fucking piece of shit GTK file chooser. If I need to sort through a bunch of files, easier to run Samba and sort through them on my Mac, because Nautilus was scooped out of the same fucking pile of shit than the GTK file chooser was scooped from. As far as I can tell, the last time that browsing files on macOS really changed was 2007, when 10.5 came out and had Quick Look. Since then, browsing files on Linux has somehow gotten worse. Do you know what it’s like on macOS? Every once in a while, Apple quietly adds support for previewing a couple more formats.
dm319 6y ago
Yup - one of the many reasons I needed to stay on MATE.
- dleslie 6y ago
  MATE continues to be fantastic; I see no reason to switch.
- ziotom78 6y ago
  It has been a long time since I tried MATE. Do you mean that the file dialog does not implement recursive search? If it is so, then I must consider switching! (At the moment I am using Xfce.)
  - pizza234 6y ago
    MATE's based on GTK, so it inherits all the GTK "features", last but not least, the v3 file chooser, which lost along the way the create new folder key binding, and the quick search by prefix (which now has to be inconveniently performed on the address bar). Additionally, programs may rely on different GTK versions, which also makes things confusing. For example, Visual Studio Code and Firefox use GTK3. edit: extended with programs explanation
    - ziotom78 6y ago
      Sigh, I feared this answer! :-(
    - dm319 6y ago
      Oh darn. I don't have a problem on my UbuntuMATE, but realised I'm still on 18.04. At least caja seems sane?
      - pantalaimon 6y ago
        Caja retains all the features of Gnome 2's Nautilus and gained a few more. I actually like background textures for my file manager, so i'm happy this stayed. But there is also tabbed and two pane view which got axed from Nautilus too.
garaetjjte 6y ago
I use this patch: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/typeahead.patch?h=gtk3-typeahead https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/typeahead.patch?...
ziotom78 6y ago
I have found a (cumbersome) solution to this using Xfce. Its Thunar file manager does implement type-ahead, so whenever I need to open a file that is saved in some deeply-nested folder, I open Thunar (using a custom shortcut, Ctrl+Alt+E) and quickly navigate to the file using type-ahead and press Ctr+L to copy its full path to the clipboard, then I switch to my app and paste the address. For complex paths, I found that this is the quickest way to open the file I want.
- efaref 6y ago
  Using TFA's analogy, that's a workaround where you use the neighbour's toilet.
  - ziotom78 6y ago
    Exactly!!! :-)
mard 6y ago
The lack of typeahead in GtkFileChooser is my biggest annoyance that I've ever come across. Ever since I started using computers nearly 25 years ago I used typeahead to navigate through directories and I can't imagine doing it otherwise. The idea of removing typeahead is anti-human to me, I couldn't adapt even though I really tried to.
- jopsen 6y ago
  Yeah, the first thing I do after installing Linux has always been to replace nautilus with something else. Nautilus is pretty, and for the most part fairly nice. But lacking typeahead just makes it unusable.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    Which makes me think the biggest problem with the file selector as described is not that it's flawed, but that it's hard to replace. One of the thing I loved about the Amiga was that because of how the API was structured, it was easy to replace things like this, as you could patch every API endpoint. As a result, it took very little time before more advanced replacements for the standard file requester appeared. You "just" had to patch (via OS-provided functions) a couple of library calls.
- Rompect 6y ago
  So true. That is the biggest concern that I have with Linux overall.

skrap 6y ago

Is this https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2366 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/issues/2366 ? It really bothers me as well.

kaszanka 6y ago
Yes. As you can see, this is by design.
- philsnow 6y ago
  This is in my experience emblematic of GNOME in general. I've shaken the dust off my sandals and don't use anything gnome-y if I can avoid it. Here's the thing that convinced me, a while back: https://wiki.gnome.org/Attic/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#Why_doesn.27t_the_screensaver_preferences_tool_allow_me_to_change_the_settings_for_the_theme.3F https://wiki.gnome.org/Attic/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAske... I'm sure there's people here who are long-time contributors and/or supporters. Just ignore me, I'm not your target audience. ... I'm really not sure who your target audience is, though.
  - Renevith 6y ago
    Holy crap. It reads like a parody written by someone who read this thread and article. I was thinking it couldn't be as bad as people we're saying, but it's worse!
  - throwdbaaway 6y ago
    > I'm really not sure who your target audience is, though. We should ask Havoc Pennington about this, he must have names for all the personas that he came up with, after reading "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum": https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2002-December/msg00482.html https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2002-Dece... I actually have a copy of the book, and it is indeed a good book. The problem is that it somehow empowers GNOME developers to keep creating/maintaining/rewriting broken software, all in the name of "usability".
baybal2 6y ago
> Free software development is not a democracy, and does not get driven by polls. Features and bugs are introduced by those who show up, within a community that works towards a shared goal. And it is exactly to let themselves yell that, they work hard to alienate few normal devs left in the project. I understood now that Gnome 3.0 was from the start Redhat's fully intentional attempt to appropriate the project, and is not dissimilar to Microsoft's embrace, extend, extinguish. 1. Get command of some more abandoned parts of the project. 2. Push a series of guaranteedly unpopular sharp direction changes which will lead to loss of devs. 3. As devs leave, you get more reinforcement to your casus belli, saying that "nobody maintains this pile of garbage, so now I am taking it over too" 4. Rinse, and repeat.
- stretchcat 6y ago
  This sure seems accurate to me, from what I've personally observed, but I don't understand what motive they might have. What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it?
  - baud147258 6y ago
    > What's the point of controlling popular software by making everybody hate it? they'd be the only left able to offer (paid) support?
    - stretchcat 6y ago
      Does GNOME really bring in much paid support momey? In the past I have worked at a company that did have RHEL5 workstations with GNOME by default, but everybody I knew treated that as a joke and sshed into the workstations from their (Windows) Thinkpads or Macbooks. The desktop software on those workstations was unwanted and unused.
      - lmm 6y ago
        That sounds like the ideal situation for RedHat's business model.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
klodolph 6y ago
I use Linux, macOS, and Windows on a regular basis. I use mostly default settings, only a couple changes. Over time my settings move closer and closer to defaults. I tell people to upgrade their OS (with a couple exceptions). I was on-board with GNOME 3 when it came out (I was an Arch user at the time, but I’m in remission now). The GTK file chooser dialog is easily the most garbage piece of fucking shit. Honestly, sometimes, if I want to post something online I just copy the file to my Mac first just to avoid dealing with the fucking piece of shit GTK file chooser. If I need to sort through a bunch of files, easier to run Samba and sort through them on my Mac, because Nautilus was scooped out of the same fucking pile of shit than the GTK file chooser was scooped from. As far as I can tell, the last time that browsing files on macOS really changed was 2007, when 10.5 came out and had Quick Look. Since then, browsing files on Linux has somehow gotten worse. Do you know what it’s like on macOS? Every once in a while, Apple quietly adds support for previewing a couple more formats.

dm319 6y ago

Yup - one of the many reasons I needed to stay on MATE.

dleslie 6y ago
MATE continues to be fantastic; I see no reason to switch.
ziotom78 6y ago
It has been a long time since I tried MATE. Do you mean that the file dialog does not implement recursive search? If it is so, then I must consider switching! (At the moment I am using Xfce.)
- pizza234 6y ago
  MATE's based on GTK, so it inherits all the GTK "features", last but not least, the v3 file chooser, which lost along the way the create new folder key binding, and the quick search by prefix (which now has to be inconveniently performed on the address bar). Additionally, programs may rely on different GTK versions, which also makes things confusing. For example, Visual Studio Code and Firefox use GTK3. edit: extended with programs explanation
  - ziotom78 6y ago
    Sigh, I feared this answer! :-(
  - dm319 6y ago
    Oh darn. I don't have a problem on my UbuntuMATE, but realised I'm still on 18.04. At least caja seems sane?
    - pantalaimon 6y ago
      Caja retains all the features of Gnome 2's Nautilus and gained a few more. I actually like background textures for my file manager, so i'm happy this stayed. But there is also tabbed and two pane view which got axed from Nautilus too.

garaetjjte 6y ago

I use this patch: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/typeahead.patch?h=gtk3-typeahead https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/typeahead.patch?...

ziotom78 6y ago

I have found a (cumbersome) solution to this using Xfce. Its Thunar file manager does implement type-ahead, so whenever I need to open a file that is saved in some deeply-nested folder, I open Thunar (using a custom shortcut, Ctrl+Alt+E) and quickly navigate to the file using type-ahead and press Ctr+L to copy its full path to the clipboard, then I switch to my app and paste the address. For complex paths, I found that this is the quickest way to open the file I want.

efaref 6y ago
Using TFA's analogy, that's a workaround where you use the neighbour's toilet.
- ziotom78 6y ago
  Exactly!!! :-)

mard 6y ago

The lack of typeahead in GtkFileChooser is my biggest annoyance that I've ever come across. Ever since I started using computers nearly 25 years ago I used typeahead to navigate through directories and I can't imagine doing it otherwise. The idea of removing typeahead is anti-human to me, I couldn't adapt even though I really tried to.

jopsen 6y ago
Yeah, the first thing I do after installing Linux has always been to replace nautilus with something else. Nautilus is pretty, and for the most part fairly nice. But lacking typeahead just makes it unusable.
- vidarh 6y ago
  Which makes me think the biggest problem with the file selector as described is not that it's flawed, but that it's hard to replace. One of the thing I loved about the Amiga was that because of how the API was structured, it was easy to replace things like this, as you could patch every API endpoint. As a result, it took very little time before more advanced replacements for the standard file requester appeared. You "just" had to patch (via OS-provided functions) a couple of library calls.
Rompect 6y ago
So true. That is the biggest concern that I have with Linux overall.