10 ms·

File picker meme

107 points by Cloudef 5y ago

cunidev 5y ago
This "meme" is the core of most useless, destroying DE wars in the Linux community. An example of how such a limited case can fuel beliefs of one desktop being "better" than the other, and the latter being something to continuously joke on. The lack of collaboration between desktops is, in my opinion, at the core of the fragmentation that makes Linux desktops still appear so far from their proprietary counterparts. This is not to say that either desktop is perfect in vision or implementation, of course, but the "GNOME vs KDE flame wars" are just childish talk. Mature criticism and, especially, collaboration is what both desktops need.
- KozmoNau7 5y ago
  I agree that collaboration is always desirable, and that common standards are beneficial to everyone. But the GTK filepicker is simply an embarrassment, there's no other word for it. For all of the effort that has been spent on everything else Gnome-related, adding thumbnails to the filepicker would have been an extremely easy win. The current implentation is at Win 3.x levels of design and experience.
  - Cloudef 5y ago
    I've always wondered why file picker has to be so tightly integrated into GUI toolkit. Separate program outputting the selected path(s) sounds like much nicer design, and makes it easier to implement alternative file pickers.
    - prussian 5y ago
      I believe that is the purpose of the xdg portals specification. https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/portal-docs.html https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/portal-docs.htm...
      - Cloudef 5y ago
        Not really >The FileChooser portal allows sandboxed applications to ask the user for access to files outside the sandbox. The portal backend will present the user with a file chooser dialog. In addition it being a dbus api for communicating outside a sandbox
        prussian 5y ago
        Not really how? https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc This is a standardized GTK workflow that works in and out of flatpak.
        Cloudef 5y ago
        I was under impression the backend has to implement all of the API to do that. Nice to know it's enough to have dbus service that listens to a single call. I might do this to replace file picker on my machine. It's still baffling however, how fork + exec <-> pipe can't be used for this. Especially considering that under all that dbus cruft the PoC essentially does this: https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc/blob/master/portal/file_chooser.py#L18-L19 https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc/...
        BrightGlow 5y ago
        Using fork and exec with a pipe is not going to work within a sandbox. That "cruft" is necessary for the thing to work...
        Cloudef 5y ago
        I get why they invented this for flatpak (Even though it still could be done with processes and namespaces), but my original point was wondering why they did not originally use fork, exec and pipe.
        5y ago
- marcodiego 5y ago
  Although they disagree in many aspects, kde and gnome community have, AFAICS, had a healthy relationship for many years now. They collaborate with each other, implement common standards and even held events together. The adoption and popularization of ICCCWM, xdg-tools, PackageKit and even the support to wayland, pipewire and flatpaks are result of that. Flame wars about what DE is best reminds of the days when people thought you were a 'hacker' just because you used linux. Or better, when people used linux just because they thought people would think they were hackers.
- forgotpwd16 5y ago
  This meme isn't a limited case and it's representative of the mindset that GNOME has. Extremely focused in one "vision" disregarding the opinions and issues of users.
  - Gualdrapo 5y ago
    Alas it does not happen only on GNOME. For example, mentioning how irrational is that to this day GIMP has no dedicated tool to draw basic geometric shapes (rectangles, ovals) as every other image editor does, even the most basic ones, can get you a lecture about how GIMP is free software, its lack of funding, that (allegedly) those tools are irrelevant and go against their philosophy, downvotes, bans...
    - BrightGlow 5y ago
      I don't get this post. You listed several rational reasons why it has no tool to do that: >GIMP is free software, its lack of funding, that (allegedly) those tools are irrelevant If you have a specific feature request, you might consider checking the bug tracker for an existing issue. If there is one, then it's not helpful to mention it any further. The developers already know what the request is. From that point on the only helpful thing you can do is to contribute code, designs, etc towards getting the feature done. To illustrate, have you ever had somebody sitting behind you while you work who keeps repeatedly saying things like "are you working on that thing for me yet? are you done yet? when will you be done?" until you finish? It's kind of like that. Doing that doesn't help the person go any faster.
    - TLLtchvL8KZ 5y ago
      GIMP is crap, the reason they make up all those excuses is because they have nothing better than it. The majority of them talking online seem to think GIMP is a superior image manipulation tool than Photoshop on a technical level despite the fact gimp cannot even simply or reliably draw a circle.
      - BrightGlow 5y ago
        Your comment's really negative and disrespectful, please don't do that. If your test for drawing programs is "makes it simple to draw a circle" than Microsoft Paint would be better than both of them.
- Cloudef 5y ago
  Sometimes collaboration goes nowhere: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217
  - forgotpwd16 5y ago
    >Enough spam for today. Locking the issue. Locked as expected. But really? Well-written written arguments from users and developers is considered spam?
    - OJFord 5y ago
      The worst bit IMO is that that promptly followed: > I've created a new thread that hopefully is a bit more relevant. Continue the conversation here > ['here' marked as duplicate of 'this' and closed]
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - alxlaz 5y ago
      On the Gnome bug tracker? Yes.
      - gnulinux 5y ago
        But why, I don't understand. These conversations need to be had somewhere, why not in a bug tracker where developer said they won't fix it? There already is an argument not to fix it, why can't others support fixing it?
        OJFord 5y ago
        I don't think GP means it's good or that they agree with it. Just like 'oh yeah, that's to be expected there...'
        5y ago
- simion314 5y ago
  File picking is a very important thing, I am sorry if is hard to implement but some pathetic workaround or some simplicity excuse is not working with many users.
- whywhywhywhy 5y ago
  > An example of how such a limited case can fuel beliefs of one desktop being "better" than the other Disagree completely, if they don't care to add such a relatively basic feature that every other environment has and don't care if their users have a 90s level experience opening documents which users do multiple times a day then why would you expect any of the rest of the system to have any care and attention paid to it?
  - BrightGlow 5y ago
    Welcome to Linux on the desktop, where every project has no money and no developers and is decades behind Windows and Mac. It's been like this the entire time I've been using Linux. But somehow, some people still manage to use it and get work done.
- zanc 5y ago
  >Linux desktops Linux is a kernel.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    ... and desktops running operating systems with a Linux kernel are called Linux desktops when it doesn't matter much which distribution is being discussed.
    - maccolgan 5y ago
      If you run Android in desktop mode, would that be considered a Linux desktop?
      - dsr_ 5y ago
        Sure, in much the same way that a ChromeOS box is a Linux box but a MacOS box is not, but both of them are UNIX boxes. Which terminology you use depends on what you want to emphasize.
eloeffler 5y ago
Back then at least there was some sense in trying to mimick Windows as closely as possible in a graphical environment to gain acceptance among Windows users who'd claim they can't get used to a new interface. Starting with Windows 8 at the latest that argument was kind of silly :)
29athrowaway 5y ago
At least we don't have to see ads.
- swiley 5y ago
  I’ll take good faith bugs and missing features over the pathological psycho warfare in closed software any day of the week.
  - andrepd 5y ago
    I think that the point here is that this is anything but a "good faith bug".
    - gnomewascool 5y ago
      GNOME's attitude isn't caused by them seeking to monetise their software or invigilate their users (e.g. "we say that we're not adding/changing this feature because X, but _really_ we're not doing so because it would prevent us from displaying ads/addicting our users"), but because they have a certain vision that they're stubbornly sticking to, so yes, it is a "good faith bug".
    - BrightGlow 5y ago
      How is that the point? GNOME is an understaffed and underfunded project.
      - _dain_ 5y ago
        Well why doesn't the GNOME project offer a way for people to pay for specific features and bugfixes? I would contribute money if I knew it would go towards paying someone to fix the file-chooser dialog. So would a lot of other people, if there was an announcement. I know for a fact I am not the only person who would do this: https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbnails-in-the-file-picker.html https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna... > One may say, "quit complaining, the GNOME developers are doing for free!" Okay. Well, how much money should I pay for someone to fix this then? I’m legit offering a bounty here. Conditions are that this fix makes it into the master branch.
amiga-workbench 5y ago
Even Serenity OS has a feature complete file picker. Embarrassing.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Kiro 5y ago
This is by far the biggest obstacle to mass adoption.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  Poe's law strikes again: are you saying, sarcastically, "Yeah of course Gnome's filepicker is the biggest problem Linux has," or are you saying, seriously, "Yes, this attitude of 'We won't fix it because principle!' is the biggest problem the Linux community has"?
  - space_ghost 5y ago
    Honestly, it could be either one, and that's what makes this meme so interesting/fantastic/depressing.
dublin 5y ago
Gnome's UI really does suck. Windows File Explorer sucks, too, just not nearly as bad. (Though I'd put it FAR ahead of the Mac's counter-intuitive and ill-named Finder.) It's the 21st century - WHY, OH, WHY do we still have file managers that provide NO CLUE as to the size and number of files in a directory? Why are all presentations still list or grid-based? Why does it take so long to find files? Can't we save the hashes from the last search and update them periodically when the machine is idle? I'll venture a guess: Because "real programmers" don't use GUIs for file manipulation, so they JUST DON'T CARE about making the most important UI next to the browser any better.
- ghostly_s 5y ago
  No idea why this is downvoted, its spot on.
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  I don't see the problem, to be honest. I never really care about how many files are in a directory or how big that directory is when I'm in the "open file" dialog. I just want to find my file quickly. I have no idea how to efficiently operate Apple's design, but I've never had a problem with the Windows file picker. Same with Gnome, to be honest, except when I'm trying to pick an image file. Out of all the UI options, I don't think the grid or list views are the biggest problem here. I don't know what kind of view you expect, but even on phones you'll get grids and lists when picking a file. Every application on the desktop as far as I know has a mechanism to remember the last folder opened, but searches are rarely repeated. I think that makes sense because searches are usually for one specific file, and the probability that you want to open the exact same file multiple times in a row is relatively low compared to the probability that you want to open a file from the same folder. Windows Collections and the search folder mechanism do allow you to use such a method of file picking, though, because the virtual folders that every application already supports can be reused and customised to your hearts desire. As for why it's still a flat overview of files and folders, it's probably performance related. On my machine, I can find pretty much any file by hitting the super key and typing. Gnome Tracker and Windows Search index all the files in my home directory and searching is pretty much instant. On hard drives the searching is slower, but at the same time the indexing barely ever runs because the hard drive is always busy (or the indexer is slowing down the whole system, like on Windows Vista). Automated collections of images and video files work great in a sandboxes environment but Android's buggy file picker shows what happens with that paradigm in an arbitrary file structure, often missing pictures or listing deleted ones on my device because an app used the wrong API or a database sync is still running in the background. My device isn't even a particularly cheap one, I can't imagine how often people with $100 phones run it to this mess.
weberer 5y ago
Related discussion from earlier this year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719796
h2odragon 5y ago
What's really important is that the elements of the dialog box all move around every few fears, so no one can get too familiar with it and expect to understand what they see at a glance. The presence of text box in which any text entered does something totally unexpected is at least universal.
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  Absolutely agree about the bizarre textbox that pops up if I accidentally press a key while the filename box isn't selected... what on Earth is it supposed to be doing? Does anyone want that feature, someone who thinks, "Yes, when I hit a key in a Save dialog, I'd like to have a strangely filtered list of the files that are there already!?"
  - arghwhat 5y ago
    To be fair I use the feature a lot when picking a batch of files for editing. It just makes no sense for saving - it's a bad UX reuse attempt.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Very very rarely I search on saving, to find a file that I'm going to overwrite.
  - jdub 5y ago
    You may have heard the rumour that GTK/GNOME developers make software for simpleton users that don't exist. But you've just run into a power user feature that you don't understand. Now, what do you think will happen if the GTK/GNOME developers get rid of that "bizarre textbox" so it doesn't get in your way? Yes, they'll get a torrent of abuse for "removing the last power user feature" or something. :-)
    - h_anna_h 5y ago
      People were actually annoyed when they replaced the normal search with the new recursive one, so I doubt it.
smoldesu 5y ago
I hopped off the GNOME train a few months ago, v40 was just too much, too fast, and will likely leave the ecosystem pretty broken for the considerable future. However, I still really like GTK (even prefer it over QT, in many ways) and have full faith that the Linux desktop will push through. What concerns me is the hypocrisy of the modern GNOME team and how little they listen to the actual community using their DE. They claim to want "less settings and more features" yet remove features with every update, only to be forced into adding feature flags/settings options to add/remove it at the user's discretion. They claim that we're finally going to kill sacred cows, but the File Picker Meme still exists. They claim to respect your freedom, but force you to use Flatpaks and obfuscate their own code to prevent you from getting consistent app theming. It really disappoints me to see a DE fall from grace like this, but I probably shouldn't have been so dependent on a single project in the first place. Here's hoping they can iron out all of the (many, many) issues before the next major release.
- BrightGlow 5y ago
  >What concerns me is the hypocrisy of the modern GNOME team and how little they listen to the actual community using their DE. Please remember: GNOME is a loosely connected group of volunteers all working on what they want to work on. If one person says they're prioritizing something and another person says they're going to do something else, that's not hypocrisy, that's just a difference of opinion. I know it may be confusing when one person says one thing and another person says something different but this is something you have to get used to in open source, it's not like a company where the CEO tells everyone what to do. Some developers may choose to listen to certain community members and may choose to ignore other community members, sadly that has to happen in any project where the wider community outnumbers the developers. Every interested person can't get their way all the time because resources are limited. >They claim to respect your freedom, but force you to use Flatpaks and obfuscate their own code to prevent you from getting consistent app theming This statement doesn't make sense to me. Flathub lists the license of the program and most packages are open source. And I have no idea what you mean by "obfuscate their own code" or "consistent app theming", could you elaborate? The suggested way to get consistent app theming is to stick with the Adwaita theme, if you're installing custom themes then that's guaranteed to be inconsistent. >Here's hoping they can iron out all of the (many, many) issues before the next major release. If there are issues that you want to see fixed, the best way to help that would be to contribute.
superkuh 5y ago
The lack of a thumbnail is hardly the most glaring flaw in gtkfilechooserwidget.c in Gtk3. Since 2013 (before this it was fine) the file chooser File->Open dialog no longer allows you to type in it or paste file paths into without first hitting a series of hot keys. It will literally throw an error if you paste a file path into the file chooser. This means every application that uses Gtk3 is broken on linux. I've talked to the devs responsible for this over on their GNOME IRC channel and they say everyone should port their applications to Gtk4 and Gtk3 is frozen and will never be fixed. I've attempted to fix it myself in source, compile, and manually swap in the new gtk3 libs but so far I can only get the filename entry text box to appear by default on the first "File->Open" operation but none after the first. It is one of the major reasons I run older versions of software. Newer software is broken unless it is bleeding edge and then nothing actually uses it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
delta1 5y ago
NSFW
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Try this: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv
waitwhatwhoa 5y ago
https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_meme&oldid=50932 https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_m... Will get you the content without the NSFW go away message.
- jchw 5y ago
  I know it’s utterly distasteful, but I am fairly amused at the youthful rebellion of defacing a web page in this fashion. Feels very old Internet.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  That has been hijacked too, this should work: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv
znpy 5y ago
The page seems to have been vandalized, and it's currently showing an NSFW image. EDIT: here's the old, non-vandalized version: https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_meme&oldid=50932 https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_m...
- skinkestek 5y ago
  That has been hijacked too, this should work: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv
rozab 5y ago
@dang might want to remove this based on page edit. Submitting a link to a 4chan wiki was probably a silly idea :)
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  Or link to the version of the page before the edits: https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_meme&oldid=50932 https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_m...
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    That has been hijacked too, this should work: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv
- darig 5y ago
  "silly"
- Cloudef 5y ago
  https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv maybe replace the link with this
jdub 5y ago
This issue is almost never raised in good faith. Just look at this document. Disingenuous, trolling, contemptuous of the work of FLOSS developers. Then look at the comments in this thread, repeating and escalating the same nastiness. Crap like this contributes to burnout, people leaving the community, etc. Why spend your time on a volunteer effort if you're just going to be abused by non-contributors? There's a reason behind the problem should anyone care to find out... Most people reading this thread should have at least some sympathy (empathy, even) for architectural and social challenges in large, long-running software projects. GNOME is a 22 year old project, and for much of that time its underlying toolkit, GTK (formerly GTK+), was intentionally maintained very separately. The consequence is that, broadly speaking, GTK could not depend on GNOME features. So, shoving GNOME's Nautilus-powered file management in a GTK file chooser? That's tricky. Other GTK users would not appreciate GTK depending on, well, almost all of GNOME. A point of integration was required, to allow the outside environment to provide the file chooser user interface. Turns out that's also tricky, especially when your toolkit is providing API/ABI guarantees. Consider that GTK 2.x maintained API/ABI compatibility for almost half the entire lifetime of the GTK project. But no one gave up. More recently, the XDG portals work provides an opportunity to solve this (and quite a few other problems) cleanly and, more importantly, securely. This will also allow a KDE environment to provide the file chooser interface for a GTK application. Nice! Why isn't it already supported everywhere? Because there are a lot of people and projects involved. It's entirely legitimate to ask, in good faith, why this wasn't done 10, even 20 years ago. Consider that building a complete FLOSS desktop system is an immense amount of work, and that's what GNOME (even before 2.0) was focused on. Not just "a user interface for Linux", but making the entire stack work for real people. So many improvements in Linux desktop systems came from GNOME developers deciding that the status quo wasn't good enough. We wanted to fix the kernel, device discovery and enablement, dynamic wired and wireless network configuration, rich input devices, accessibility, etc., etc. Remember, 20 years ago just getting X to work with your bloody monitor to work was enough of a pain. Then, consider the priorities of the people contributing to the GNOME and GTK projects. Was it more important to break toolkit API/ABI compatibility to let GNOME replace the file chooser, or maintain that compatibility and work on other, arguably more fundamental problems? Oh, and you know what happens when GTK/GNOME chose to break API/ABI compatibility for 3.x and 4.x? Everyone complained that FLOSS desktop developers can't maintain compatibility and that's the thing holding back "Linux on the desktop". Anyway, if you're not already turned off by all the abuse that FLOSS desktop developers cop for literally everything they do, from people who don't know any better and people who should know better, I can still recommend it as deeply satisfying work. :-)

107 points by Cloudef 5y ago

This "meme" is the core of most useless, destroying DE wars in the Linux community. An example of how such a limited case can fuel beliefs of one desktop being "better" than the other, and the latter being something to continuously joke on. The lack of collaboration between desktops is, in my opinion, at the core of the fragmentation that makes Linux desktops still appear so far from their proprietary counterparts. This is not to say that either desktop is perfect in vision or implementation, of course, but the "GNOME vs KDE flame wars" are just childish talk. Mature criticism and, especially, collaboration is what both desktops need.

KozmoNau7 5y ago
I agree that collaboration is always desirable, and that common standards are beneficial to everyone. But the GTK filepicker is simply an embarrassment, there's no other word for it. For all of the effort that has been spent on everything else Gnome-related, adding thumbnails to the filepicker would have been an extremely easy win. The current implentation is at Win 3.x levels of design and experience.
- Cloudef 5y ago
  I've always wondered why file picker has to be so tightly integrated into GUI toolkit. Separate program outputting the selected path(s) sounds like much nicer design, and makes it easier to implement alternative file pickers.
  - prussian 5y ago
    I believe that is the purpose of the xdg portals specification. https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/portal-docs.html https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/portal-docs.htm...
    - Cloudef 5y ago
      Not really >The FileChooser portal allows sandboxed applications to ask the user for access to files outside the sandbox. The portal backend will present the user with a file chooser dialog. In addition it being a dbus api for communicating outside a sandbox
      - prussian 5y ago
        Not really how? https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc This is a standardized GTK workflow that works in and out of flatpak.
        Cloudef 5y ago
        I was under impression the backend has to implement all of the API to do that. Nice to know it's enough to have dbus service that listens to a single call. I might do this to replace file picker on my machine. It's still baffling however, how fork + exec <-> pipe can't be used for this. Especially considering that under all that dbus cruft the PoC essentially does this: https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc/blob/master/portal/file_chooser.py#L18-L19 https://github.com/ranchester2/nautilus-as-file-chooser-poc/...
        BrightGlow 5y ago
        Using fork and exec with a pipe is not going to work within a sandbox. That "cruft" is necessary for the thing to work...
        Cloudef 5y ago
        I get why they invented this for flatpak (Even though it still could be done with processes and namespaces), but my original point was wondering why they did not originally use fork, exec and pipe.
        5y ago
marcodiego 5y ago
Although they disagree in many aspects, kde and gnome community have, AFAICS, had a healthy relationship for many years now. They collaborate with each other, implement common standards and even held events together. The adoption and popularization of ICCCWM, xdg-tools, PackageKit and even the support to wayland, pipewire and flatpaks are result of that. Flame wars about what DE is best reminds of the days when people thought you were a 'hacker' just because you used linux. Or better, when people used linux just because they thought people would think they were hackers.
forgotpwd16 5y ago
This meme isn't a limited case and it's representative of the mindset that GNOME has. Extremely focused in one "vision" disregarding the opinions and issues of users.
- Gualdrapo 5y ago
  Alas it does not happen only on GNOME. For example, mentioning how irrational is that to this day GIMP has no dedicated tool to draw basic geometric shapes (rectangles, ovals) as every other image editor does, even the most basic ones, can get you a lecture about how GIMP is free software, its lack of funding, that (allegedly) those tools are irrelevant and go against their philosophy, downvotes, bans...
  - BrightGlow 5y ago
    I don't get this post. You listed several rational reasons why it has no tool to do that: >GIMP is free software, its lack of funding, that (allegedly) those tools are irrelevant If you have a specific feature request, you might consider checking the bug tracker for an existing issue. If there is one, then it's not helpful to mention it any further. The developers already know what the request is. From that point on the only helpful thing you can do is to contribute code, designs, etc towards getting the feature done. To illustrate, have you ever had somebody sitting behind you while you work who keeps repeatedly saying things like "are you working on that thing for me yet? are you done yet? when will you be done?" until you finish? It's kind of like that. Doing that doesn't help the person go any faster.
  - TLLtchvL8KZ 5y ago
    GIMP is crap, the reason they make up all those excuses is because they have nothing better than it. The majority of them talking online seem to think GIMP is a superior image manipulation tool than Photoshop on a technical level despite the fact gimp cannot even simply or reliably draw a circle.
    - BrightGlow 5y ago
      Your comment's really negative and disrespectful, please don't do that. If your test for drawing programs is "makes it simple to draw a circle" than Microsoft Paint would be better than both of them.
Cloudef 5y ago
Sometimes collaboration goes nowhere: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217
- forgotpwd16 5y ago
  >Enough spam for today. Locking the issue. Locked as expected. But really? Well-written written arguments from users and developers is considered spam?
  - OJFord 5y ago
    The worst bit IMO is that that promptly followed: > I've created a new thread that hopefully is a bit more relevant. Continue the conversation here > ['here' marked as duplicate of 'this' and closed]
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - alxlaz 5y ago
    On the Gnome bug tracker? Yes.
    - gnulinux 5y ago
      But why, I don't understand. These conversations need to be had somewhere, why not in a bug tracker where developer said they won't fix it? There already is an argument not to fix it, why can't others support fixing it?
      - OJFord 5y ago
        I don't think GP means it's good or that they agree with it. Just like 'oh yeah, that's to be expected there...'
        5y ago
simion314 5y ago
File picking is a very important thing, I am sorry if is hard to implement but some pathetic workaround or some simplicity excuse is not working with many users.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
> An example of how such a limited case can fuel beliefs of one desktop being "better" than the other Disagree completely, if they don't care to add such a relatively basic feature that every other environment has and don't care if their users have a 90s level experience opening documents which users do multiple times a day then why would you expect any of the rest of the system to have any care and attention paid to it?
- BrightGlow 5y ago
  Welcome to Linux on the desktop, where every project has no money and no developers and is decades behind Windows and Mac. It's been like this the entire time I've been using Linux. But somehow, some people still manage to use it and get work done.
zanc 5y ago
>Linux desktops Linux is a kernel.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  ... and desktops running operating systems with a Linux kernel are called Linux desktops when it doesn't matter much which distribution is being discussed.
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    If you run Android in desktop mode, would that be considered a Linux desktop?
    - dsr_ 5y ago
      Sure, in much the same way that a ChromeOS box is a Linux box but a MacOS box is not, but both of them are UNIX boxes. Which terminology you use depends on what you want to emphasize.

eloeffler 5y ago

Back then at least there was some sense in trying to mimick Windows as closely as possible in a graphical environment to gain acceptance among Windows users who'd claim they can't get used to a new interface. Starting with Windows 8 at the latest that argument was kind of silly :)

29athrowaway 5y ago

At least we don't have to see ads.

swiley 5y ago
I’ll take good faith bugs and missing features over the pathological psycho warfare in closed software any day of the week.
- andrepd 5y ago
  I think that the point here is that this is anything but a "good faith bug".
  - gnomewascool 5y ago
    GNOME's attitude isn't caused by them seeking to monetise their software or invigilate their users (e.g. "we say that we're not adding/changing this feature because X, but _really_ we're not doing so because it would prevent us from displaying ads/addicting our users"), but because they have a certain vision that they're stubbornly sticking to, so yes, it is a "good faith bug".
  - BrightGlow 5y ago
    How is that the point? GNOME is an understaffed and underfunded project.
    - _dain_ 5y ago
      Well why doesn't the GNOME project offer a way for people to pay for specific features and bugfixes? I would contribute money if I knew it would go towards paying someone to fix the file-chooser dialog. So would a lot of other people, if there was an announcement. I know for a fact I am not the only person who would do this: https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbnails-in-the-file-picker.html https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna... > One may say, "quit complaining, the GNOME developers are doing for free!" Okay. Well, how much money should I pay for someone to fix this then? I’m legit offering a bounty here. Conditions are that this fix makes it into the master branch.

amiga-workbench 5y ago

Even Serenity OS has a feature complete file picker. Embarrassing.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Kiro 5y ago

This is by far the biggest obstacle to mass adoption.

JasonFruit 5y ago
Poe's law strikes again: are you saying, sarcastically, "Yeah of course Gnome's filepicker is the biggest problem Linux has," or are you saying, seriously, "Yes, this attitude of 'We won't fix it because principle!' is the biggest problem the Linux community has"?
- space_ghost 5y ago
  Honestly, it could be either one, and that's what makes this meme so interesting/fantastic/depressing.

dublin 5y ago

Gnome's UI really does suck. Windows File Explorer sucks, too, just not nearly as bad. (Though I'd put it FAR ahead of the Mac's counter-intuitive and ill-named Finder.) It's the 21st century - WHY, OH, WHY do we still have file managers that provide NO CLUE as to the size and number of files in a directory? Why are all presentations still list or grid-based? Why does it take so long to find files? Can't we save the hashes from the last search and update them periodically when the machine is idle? I'll venture a guess: Because "real programmers" don't use GUIs for file manipulation, so they JUST DON'T CARE about making the most important UI next to the browser any better.

ghostly_s 5y ago
No idea why this is downvoted, its spot on.
jeroenhd 5y ago
I don't see the problem, to be honest. I never really care about how many files are in a directory or how big that directory is when I'm in the "open file" dialog. I just want to find my file quickly. I have no idea how to efficiently operate Apple's design, but I've never had a problem with the Windows file picker. Same with Gnome, to be honest, except when I'm trying to pick an image file. Out of all the UI options, I don't think the grid or list views are the biggest problem here. I don't know what kind of view you expect, but even on phones you'll get grids and lists when picking a file. Every application on the desktop as far as I know has a mechanism to remember the last folder opened, but searches are rarely repeated. I think that makes sense because searches are usually for one specific file, and the probability that you want to open the exact same file multiple times in a row is relatively low compared to the probability that you want to open a file from the same folder. Windows Collections and the search folder mechanism do allow you to use such a method of file picking, though, because the virtual folders that every application already supports can be reused and customised to your hearts desire. As for why it's still a flat overview of files and folders, it's probably performance related. On my machine, I can find pretty much any file by hitting the super key and typing. Gnome Tracker and Windows Search index all the files in my home directory and searching is pretty much instant. On hard drives the searching is slower, but at the same time the indexing barely ever runs because the hard drive is always busy (or the indexer is slowing down the whole system, like on Windows Vista). Automated collections of images and video files work great in a sandboxes environment but Android's buggy file picker shows what happens with that paradigm in an arbitrary file structure, often missing pictures or listing deleted ones on my device because an app used the wrong API or a database sync is still running in the background. My device isn't even a particularly cheap one, I can't imagine how often people with $100 phones run it to this mess.

weberer 5y ago

Related discussion from earlier this year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25719796

h2odragon 5y ago

What's really important is that the elements of the dialog box all move around every few fears, so no one can get too familiar with it and expect to understand what they see at a glance. The presence of text box in which any text entered does something totally unexpected is at least universal.

JasonFruit 5y ago
Absolutely agree about the bizarre textbox that pops up if I accidentally press a key while the filename box isn't selected... what on Earth is it supposed to be doing? Does anyone want that feature, someone who thinks, "Yes, when I hit a key in a Save dialog, I'd like to have a strangely filtered list of the files that are there already!?"
- arghwhat 5y ago
  To be fair I use the feature a lot when picking a batch of files for editing. It just makes no sense for saving - it's a bad UX reuse attempt.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Very very rarely I search on saving, to find a file that I'm going to overwrite.
- jdub 5y ago
  You may have heard the rumour that GTK/GNOME developers make software for simpleton users that don't exist. But you've just run into a power user feature that you don't understand. Now, what do you think will happen if the GTK/GNOME developers get rid of that "bizarre textbox" so it doesn't get in your way? Yes, they'll get a torrent of abuse for "removing the last power user feature" or something. :-)
  - h_anna_h 5y ago
    People were actually annoyed when they replaced the normal search with the new recursive one, so I doubt it.

smoldesu 5y ago

I hopped off the GNOME train a few months ago, v40 was just too much, too fast, and will likely leave the ecosystem pretty broken for the considerable future. However, I still really like GTK (even prefer it over QT, in many ways) and have full faith that the Linux desktop will push through. What concerns me is the hypocrisy of the modern GNOME team and how little they listen to the actual community using their DE. They claim to want "less settings and more features" yet remove features with every update, only to be forced into adding feature flags/settings options to add/remove it at the user's discretion. They claim that we're finally going to kill sacred cows, but the File Picker Meme still exists. They claim to respect your freedom, but force you to use Flatpaks and obfuscate their own code to prevent you from getting consistent app theming. It really disappoints me to see a DE fall from grace like this, but I probably shouldn't have been so dependent on a single project in the first place. Here's hoping they can iron out all of the (many, many) issues before the next major release.

BrightGlow 5y ago
>What concerns me is the hypocrisy of the modern GNOME team and how little they listen to the actual community using their DE. Please remember: GNOME is a loosely connected group of volunteers all working on what they want to work on. If one person says they're prioritizing something and another person says they're going to do something else, that's not hypocrisy, that's just a difference of opinion. I know it may be confusing when one person says one thing and another person says something different but this is something you have to get used to in open source, it's not like a company where the CEO tells everyone what to do. Some developers may choose to listen to certain community members and may choose to ignore other community members, sadly that has to happen in any project where the wider community outnumbers the developers. Every interested person can't get their way all the time because resources are limited. >They claim to respect your freedom, but force you to use Flatpaks and obfuscate their own code to prevent you from getting consistent app theming This statement doesn't make sense to me. Flathub lists the license of the program and most packages are open source. And I have no idea what you mean by "obfuscate their own code" or "consistent app theming", could you elaborate? The suggested way to get consistent app theming is to stick with the Adwaita theme, if you're installing custom themes then that's guaranteed to be inconsistent. >Here's hoping they can iron out all of the (many, many) issues before the next major release. If there are issues that you want to see fixed, the best way to help that would be to contribute.

superkuh 5y ago

The lack of a thumbnail is hardly the most glaring flaw in gtkfilechooserwidget.c in Gtk3. Since 2013 (before this it was fine) the file chooser File->Open dialog no longer allows you to type in it or paste file paths into without first hitting a series of hot keys. It will literally throw an error if you paste a file path into the file chooser. This means every application that uses Gtk3 is broken on linux. I've talked to the devs responsible for this over on their GNOME IRC channel and they say everyone should port their applications to Gtk4 and Gtk3 is frozen and will never be fixed. I've attempted to fix it myself in source, compile, and manually swap in the new gtk3 libs but so far I can only get the filename entry text box to appear by default on the first "File->Open" operation but none after the first. It is one of the major reasons I run older versions of software. Newer software is broken unless it is bleeding edge and then nothing actually uses it.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

delta1 5y ago

NSFW

skinkestek 5y ago
Try this: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv

waitwhatwhoa 5y ago

https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_meme&oldid=50932 https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_m... Will get you the content without the NSFW go away message.

jchw 5y ago
I know it’s utterly distasteful, but I am fairly amused at the youthful rebellion of defacing a web page in this fashion. Feels very old Internet.
skinkestek 5y ago
That has been hijacked too, this should work: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv

znpy 5y ago

The page seems to have been vandalized, and it's currently showing an NSFW image. EDIT: here's the old, non-vandalized version: https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_meme&oldid=50932 https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_m...

skinkestek 5y ago
That has been hijacked too, this should work: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv

rozab 5y ago

@dang might want to remove this based on page edit. Submitting a link to a 4chan wiki was probably a silly idea :)

jeroenhd 5y ago
Or link to the version of the page before the edits: https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_meme&oldid=50932 https://wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php?title=File_Picker_m...
- skinkestek 5y ago
  That has been hijacked too, this should work: https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv
darig 5y ago
"silly"
Cloudef 5y ago
https://archive.ph/Gq2hv https://archive.ph/Gq2hv maybe replace the link with this

jdub 5y ago

This issue is almost never raised in good faith. Just look at this document. Disingenuous, trolling, contemptuous of the work of FLOSS developers. Then look at the comments in this thread, repeating and escalating the same nastiness. Crap like this contributes to burnout, people leaving the community, etc. Why spend your time on a volunteer effort if you're just going to be abused by non-contributors? There's a reason behind the problem should anyone care to find out... Most people reading this thread should have at least some sympathy (empathy, even) for architectural and social challenges in large, long-running software projects. GNOME is a 22 year old project, and for much of that time its underlying toolkit, GTK (formerly GTK+), was intentionally maintained very separately. The consequence is that, broadly speaking, GTK could not depend on GNOME features. So, shoving GNOME's Nautilus-powered file management in a GTK file chooser? That's tricky. Other GTK users would not appreciate GTK depending on, well, almost all of GNOME. A point of integration was required, to allow the outside environment to provide the file chooser user interface. Turns out that's also tricky, especially when your toolkit is providing API/ABI guarantees. Consider that GTK 2.x maintained API/ABI compatibility for almost half the entire lifetime of the GTK project. But no one gave up. More recently, the XDG portals work provides an opportunity to solve this (and quite a few other problems) cleanly and, more importantly, securely. This will also allow a KDE environment to provide the file chooser interface for a GTK application. Nice! Why isn't it already supported everywhere? Because there are a lot of people and projects involved. It's entirely legitimate to ask, in good faith, why this wasn't done 10, even 20 years ago. Consider that building a complete FLOSS desktop system is an immense amount of work, and that's what GNOME (even before 2.0) was focused on. Not just "a user interface for Linux", but making the entire stack work for real people. So many improvements in Linux desktop systems came from GNOME developers deciding that the status quo wasn't good enough. We wanted to fix the kernel, device discovery and enablement, dynamic wired and wireless network configuration, rich input devices, accessibility, etc., etc. Remember, 20 years ago just getting X to work with your bloody monitor to work was enough of a pain. Then, consider the priorities of the people contributing to the GNOME and GTK projects. Was it more important to break toolkit API/ABI compatibility to let GNOME replace the file chooser, or maintain that compatibility and work on other, arguably more fundamental problems? Oh, and you know what happens when GTK/GNOME chose to break API/ABI compatibility for 3.x and 4.x? Everyone complained that FLOSS desktop developers can't maintain compatibility and that's the thing holding back "Linux on the desktop". Anyway, if you're not already turned off by all the abuse that FLOSS desktop developers cop for literally everything they do, from people who don't know any better and people who should know better, I can still recommend it as deeply satisfying work. :-)