5 ms·

This is a more of a rant on an overall trend than criticism of this site completely, but I honestly do not understand the "drag to upload a file" interaction at

This is a more of a rant on an overall trend than criticism of this site completely, but I honestly do not understand the "drag to upload a file" interaction at all. I'm in all likelihood going to need to navigate through a bunch of folders to locate what I want to upload anyway - why force me to open up Finder, reposition it so that my browser and finder are both visible, with the "drop area" visible as well, find my file and drag it over? With the default file upload that HTML provides, it's going to open a conveniently sized open window from the start, with a clear call to action on how to select the file in question, and no requirement for an awkward drag into some box on a webpage. It really feels like prioritizing "cool" interactions over usability.

eterm 13y ago
1. The default file chooser on windows is horrible. 2. With multiple monitors, multiple desktops, etc, quite often people will have their working files open anyway. 3. You can drag a picture straight from another open browser tab so it never needs to touch your browser. 4. Most sites give a choice of either method. 5. It's a fairly intuitive action. I know that I caught older family members struggling when they used to drag images and then the image would display in their browser. At this point they thought the photo was online and would be confused when they couldn't then find it on the site when they came back to it later.
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  >1. The default file chooser on windows is horrible. It's really not though. I've never had a problem with it.
- hrabago 13y ago
  I've always thought it was better than Finder, and is still one of the few things I miss from Windows. I could go into why I feel this way but I don't want to go off on yet a other tangent away from the main topic.
- Groxx 13y ago
  6. file pickers are frequently modal, so you can't do anything in other tabs while trying to find a file.
- solstice 13y ago
  Flashfolders for Windows adds a small bar on top of open/save dialogs and makes them sooo much more convenient: - go directly to currently open explorer window! - paste path! - two-click favourite folders - two-click history - switch to most recent folder (lasts through restarts) loads at startup, consumes 2MB of RAM and doesn't slow my 2005 XP laptop down at all
mwg986 13y ago
"reposition it so that my browser and finder are both visible, with the "drop area" visible as well" You can grab a file then Cmd(or Alt probly)+tab back to your browser window and drop the file. Don't get me wrong I don't like drag and drop interfaces for the most part. If you do have the folder open you are working on in the background, drag and dropping different files can be quicker than using a choose file dialog.
arvidjanson 13y ago
My modus operandi is setting up bottom right corner of the screen as a hot corner for Show Desktop. Just bump your mouse down the bottom right, open up a finder window to find your file, start by dragging the file down to the right corner, which resets all windows – and the just drop! This is obviously even smoother for files that are already on the desktop.
cgag 13y ago
It's kind of annoying on a tiling window manager (i3) as well since I otherwise don't often open a GUI file explorer. On the plus side though I guess when I do open it, they're always both visible.
philsnow 13y ago
On ubuntu, I'm currently using xmonad without gnome, and thus no nautilus (or whatever other thing it is that opens Finder-like windows and generally tries to behave like the Finder) by default. Whenever I need to drop something into a web page, I find myself starting up a one-off nautilus and dragging from that. I seem to recall there is a tiiiiny utility you run like "drag_target <filename>", and it pops up a window that is a drag target that plumbs <filename> through when you drop it somewhere. Does anybody recall the name of that utility ?
glhaynes 13y ago
Has the site changed since this was posted? For me it has an "Upload Image" button.
Tloewald 13y ago
You need to get Default Folder... Also, you know you can Exposé/Mission Control mid drag — makes dealing with window clutter ridiculously easy.
jakebellacera 13y ago
I just opened a tab and searched for some iPhone app screenshots in Google Images and dragged it back into Breezi, all without touching my filesystem[1]. [1] I should say _technically_ it did touch my filesystem as that image was probably yanked from a local cache of some sort, but to the user this feels intuitive and not invasive.
lechevalierd3on 13y ago
You can easily drop many files and even folders in Chrome. With a file selector this is not as easy to do And it feels more natural to pick something and drop it somewhere rather and go digging into a file picker which never open in the right hierarchy.

eterm 13y ago

1. The default file chooser on windows is horrible. 2. With multiple monitors, multiple desktops, etc, quite often people will have their working files open anyway. 3. You can drag a picture straight from another open browser tab so it never needs to touch your browser. 4. Most sites give a choice of either method. 5. It's a fairly intuitive action. I know that I caught older family members struggling when they used to drag images and then the image would display in their browser. At this point they thought the photo was online and would be confused when they couldn't then find it on the site when they came back to it later.

rfnslyr 13y ago
>1. The default file chooser on windows is horrible. It's really not though. I've never had a problem with it.
hrabago 13y ago
I've always thought it was better than Finder, and is still one of the few things I miss from Windows. I could go into why I feel this way but I don't want to go off on yet a other tangent away from the main topic.
Groxx 13y ago
6. file pickers are frequently modal, so you can't do anything in other tabs while trying to find a file.
solstice 13y ago
Flashfolders for Windows adds a small bar on top of open/save dialogs and makes them sooo much more convenient: - go directly to currently open explorer window! - paste path! - two-click favourite folders - two-click history - switch to most recent folder (lasts through restarts) loads at startup, consumes 2MB of RAM and doesn't slow my 2005 XP laptop down at all

mwg986 13y ago

"reposition it so that my browser and finder are both visible, with the "drop area" visible as well" You can grab a file then Cmd(or Alt probly)+tab back to your browser window and drop the file. Don't get me wrong I don't like drag and drop interfaces for the most part. If you do have the folder open you are working on in the background, drag and dropping different files can be quicker than using a choose file dialog.

arvidjanson 13y ago

My modus operandi is setting up bottom right corner of the screen as a hot corner for Show Desktop. Just bump your mouse down the bottom right, open up a finder window to find your file, start by dragging the file down to the right corner, which resets all windows – and the just drop! This is obviously even smoother for files that are already on the desktop.

cgag 13y ago

It's kind of annoying on a tiling window manager (i3) as well since I otherwise don't often open a GUI file explorer. On the plus side though I guess when I do open it, they're always both visible.

philsnow 13y ago

On ubuntu, I'm currently using xmonad without gnome, and thus no nautilus (or whatever other thing it is that opens Finder-like windows and generally tries to behave like the Finder) by default. Whenever I need to drop something into a web page, I find myself starting up a one-off nautilus and dragging from that. I seem to recall there is a tiiiiny utility you run like "drag_target <filename>", and it pops up a window that is a drag target that plumbs <filename> through when you drop it somewhere. Does anybody recall the name of that utility ?

glhaynes 13y ago

Has the site changed since this was posted? For me it has an "Upload Image" button.

Tloewald 13y ago

You need to get Default Folder... Also, you know you can Exposé/Mission Control mid drag — makes dealing with window clutter ridiculously easy.

jakebellacera 13y ago

I just opened a tab and searched for some iPhone app screenshots in Google Images and dragged it back into Breezi, all without touching my filesystem[1]. [1] I should say _technically_ it did touch my filesystem as that image was probably yanked from a local cache of some sort, but to the user this feels intuitive and not invasive.

lechevalierd3on 13y ago

You can easily drop many files and even folders in Chrome. With a file selector this is not as easy to do And it feels more natural to pick something and drop it somewhere rather and go digging into a file picker which never open in the right hierarchy.