always_use_location_entry

[Adam Rigg <adamrigg uwm edu>]

Hello,

I've been having some trouble turning off or otherwise changing the "button bar" to a "text location bar" when saving files with most GTK applications (one exception being gvim) in GNOME 2.30.0. The button in nautilus which normally toggles the feature is absent when saving or downloading, and it appears that nautilus's gconf-editor setting "always_use_location_entry" only affects the file browser or "open file" dialog, regardless of the application (e.g., Firefox, InkScape, GIMP). When I'm working with code, the buttonbar "feature" isn't a problem, but as an "end user" it tends to get in the way of developing multimedia content, graphics and web other content.

http://library.gnome.org/users/user-guide/2.27/nautilus-location-bar.html.en

The gconf setting corresponds to the following lines of code:

Ln 113 of "nautilus/libnautilus-private/nautilus-global-preferences.h" (definition)

Ln 74 & 75 of "nautilus/libnautilus-private/apps_nautilus_preferences.schemas.in" (default setting)
Ln 364-366 of "nautilus/libnautilus-private/nautilus-global-preferences.c" (default XML setting)

I know that this issue has been raised before, but I have not found much in the way of documentation for which libraries are responsible for it and am not able to replace nautilus completely with the use of less stable code like LXDE or KDE. Aside from Mr. Torvalds's less-than-tactful approach to correspondence, I haven't been turning up much of anything productive in the way of turning off the magic buttons and sincerely hope that his version control system proves to be more productive than his tirades with respect to the software engineering process. To be clear, nesting directories is a valuable feature, which requires the ability to quickly enter the path when saving files. Konqueror has a good approach with its new mapping feature, which might help me to reorganize things at a level which is less than three deep after the home directory, but that's still five levels deep from root. Dolphin, on the other hand, is significantly more confusing than the disappearing button in nautilus--Can we add another button?

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9126619/Q_A_Linux_founder_Linus_Torvalds_talks_about_open_source_identity?taxonomyId=18&pageNumber=5

Having said that, I am finding the process of manually resolving dependencies to be a little daunting in the pursuit of one feature while building the current git release of nautilus locally. Is there a way to resolve source dependencies through git? I can use Debian source packages or Gentoo eBuilds to resolve stable or historic code dependencies, but it seems that contributing something to the current development branches could prove to be more relevant to more users.

The nautilus that I can click on when I go to my home folder or bookmarks under the "places" menu option on the panel and the one that I get when I try to save a file from a GTK+ program are obviously different. In what ways are the underlying functions defined differently and in what source code or what files would I find them? Can I install a historic version of the file browser without breaking things?

Relevent ChangeLogs?:
2003-10-11
  * src/nautilus-location-entry.c: Moved the tab-completing entry
    into its own widget.
  * src/nautilus-navigation-window.c:
        (always_use_location_entry_changed),
        (nautilus_navigation_window_set_bar_mode):
        Always synchronize the location bar button with the pathbar
        mode.
$ grep -c location_bar ChangeLog*
ChangeLog-20000414:1
ChangeLog-20000625:20
ChangeLog-20000831:9
ChangeLog-20001018:15
ChangeLog-20010201:9
ChangeLog-20010420:13
ChangeLog-20041029:20
ChangeLog-20090417:7
ChangeLogs:94

Any help would be greatly appreciated--I'm saving a lot of files right now.

Thank you,

Adam Rigg