7 ms·

This is a weird hill to die on. I've never cared much about the file picker and the individual file preview is "good enough" to ensure you pick the correct file

This is a weird hill to die on. I've never cared much about the file picker and the individual file preview is "good enough" to ensure you pick the correct file. Now if Nautilus didn't have image previews in "icon view", then that's cause for rioting in the streets.

petepete 4y ago
You'd expect the file picker and nautilus to share behaviour though, right? Also for me, if I open the file picker from Chrome/Edge/an Electron app it's forced full screen and there's no preview on the right either. I love GNOME, use it on both desktop and laptop, but this is one of those things that's just bad.
- bstar77 4y ago
  I definitely agree that it's strange that Nautilus can do this and the file picker can't. I also agree that consistency is important, but this issue has never caused me problems so I don't think anything of it. There are other things in Gnome that are keeping me from using it after being a vocal supporter for decades.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    I think the difference is that GtkFilePicker is a part of the running GTK program, like firefox for example. If you wanted to get all of nautilus' features, you would have to embed all of nautilus into your program, including features that would be innapropriate fir a file picker Maybe instead of just using GtkFilePicker on linux, it should first check if there's an available "xdg-file-picker" in the environment, which gnome sets to nautilus with some flags to run it in file-picker mode.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      Embedding Nautilus doesn't mean enabling all its features. That said, I don't know if that's a problem, either. Windows does exactly that for its file picker - it's basically embedded Explorer, complete with context menu integration etc. And it works.
weberer 4y ago
That just tells me that you never upload images, or that your image folder is not particularly large. If trackpad drivers were broken, that would still be a pretty big issue, even though you personally always use a mouse.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I upload files all the time and for some reason I don't encounter this problem in gnome. Just give the files appropriate names? Seems like a channer problem. It's not suprising that no one from /g/ has made a patch yet. Edit: Actually, I just checked and apparently it's because the file picker actually does show thumbnail icons, just very small ones. For example, https://files.catbox.moe/h3s3c3.png https://files.catbox.moe/h3s3c3.png I guess I can usually make out what the image is from the small thumbnail icons!
  - true_religion 4y ago
    Thumbnails in your file picker are table stakes at this point. Everyone has a cell phone capable of holding thousands of images, most of which won't get an appropriate title. For example, I'm tiling a bathroom now. It was very easy to just take dozens pictures of tiles send them off for approval, and get the top five back for a further price check. That entire workflow was enabled by thumbnails. If we had to check the filename of each image we were sending, it would have slowed things down immensely.
  - imwillofficial 4y ago
    Seeing the picture you want to upload is a channer problem? You guess you just use proper file names? This attitude is EXACTLY what the author is describing, and why Linux on the desktops fails to take hold.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      The problem is that channers complain, but do not do productive things like file PRs. So problems that matter to channers will remain unresolved. If you want something done right, do it yourself. Commercial software is no exception to that. >why Linux on the desktops fails to take hold. Linux fails to take hold because it doesn't come preinstalled on laptops, and because it doesn't have the critical market share to take over. Basically nothing to do with file pickers. The ideal use case is just using drag-and-drop behavior from the file manager, instead of implementing the file manager twice. The reality is that products like Windows have shaped people into thinking about the desktop in a certain way, and linux has limited leeway in reshaping those ideas (including their idiosyncrasies like file pickers).
imtringued 4y ago
I don't have image previews ;)

petepete 4y ago

You'd expect the file picker and nautilus to share behaviour though, right? Also for me, if I open the file picker from Chrome/Edge/an Electron app it's forced full screen and there's no preview on the right either. I love GNOME, use it on both desktop and laptop, but this is one of those things that's just bad.

bstar77 4y ago
I definitely agree that it's strange that Nautilus can do this and the file picker can't. I also agree that consistency is important, but this issue has never caused me problems so I don't think anything of it. There are other things in Gnome that are keeping me from using it after being a vocal supporter for decades.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I think the difference is that GtkFilePicker is a part of the running GTK program, like firefox for example. If you wanted to get all of nautilus' features, you would have to embed all of nautilus into your program, including features that would be innapropriate fir a file picker Maybe instead of just using GtkFilePicker on linux, it should first check if there's an available "xdg-file-picker" in the environment, which gnome sets to nautilus with some flags to run it in file-picker mode.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Embedding Nautilus doesn't mean enabling all its features. That said, I don't know if that's a problem, either. Windows does exactly that for its file picker - it's basically embedded Explorer, complete with context menu integration etc. And it works.

weberer 4y ago

That just tells me that you never upload images, or that your image folder is not particularly large. If trackpad drivers were broken, that would still be a pretty big issue, even though you personally always use a mouse.

cowtools 4y ago
I upload files all the time and for some reason I don't encounter this problem in gnome. Just give the files appropriate names? Seems like a channer problem. It's not suprising that no one from /g/ has made a patch yet. Edit: Actually, I just checked and apparently it's because the file picker actually does show thumbnail icons, just very small ones. For example, https://files.catbox.moe/h3s3c3.png https://files.catbox.moe/h3s3c3.png I guess I can usually make out what the image is from the small thumbnail icons!
- true_religion 4y ago
  Thumbnails in your file picker are table stakes at this point. Everyone has a cell phone capable of holding thousands of images, most of which won't get an appropriate title. For example, I'm tiling a bathroom now. It was very easy to just take dozens pictures of tiles send them off for approval, and get the top five back for a further price check. That entire workflow was enabled by thumbnails. If we had to check the filename of each image we were sending, it would have slowed things down immensely.
- imwillofficial 4y ago
  Seeing the picture you want to upload is a channer problem? You guess you just use proper file names? This attitude is EXACTLY what the author is describing, and why Linux on the desktops fails to take hold.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    The problem is that channers complain, but do not do productive things like file PRs. So problems that matter to channers will remain unresolved. If you want something done right, do it yourself. Commercial software is no exception to that. >why Linux on the desktops fails to take hold. Linux fails to take hold because it doesn't come preinstalled on laptops, and because it doesn't have the critical market share to take over. Basically nothing to do with file pickers. The ideal use case is just using drag-and-drop behavior from the file manager, instead of implementing the file manager twice. The reality is that products like Windows have shaped people into thinking about the desktop in a certain way, and linux has limited leeway in reshaping those ideas (including their idiosyncrasies like file pickers).

imtringued 4y ago

I don't have image previews ;)