Re: RFP: File chooser user interface

[Thomas Leonard <tal00r ecs soton ac uk>]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2003 at 02:47:04PM -0400, Matthew Berg wrote:
> On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 05:16, Thomas Leonard wrote:
> 
> > I won't talk about Open dialogs. I guess most people open files from their
> > filemanager, drag-and-drop to the application, or use cut-and-paste.
> > Having a separate dialog for this seems unnecessary, but could be useful
> > in emergencies as an expert feature, I suppose.
> 
> Speaking only for my own work habits, I've never opened a file using
> drag and drop or cut and paste, and only *very* rarely open from the
> file manager.  In other words, I almost exclusively use Open dialogs.  
> 
> Do I think this is common?  No.  Do I think this is uncommon?  No. 
> Honestly, I have no idea either way.  :)  Are there any studies on this,
> because it seems unsafe to make assumptions on the matter.

I confess I didn't do a study on it. My reasoning was simply:

- Users will want to open a file using the fastest, most convenient
  method.

- GTK's file chooser is unlikely to make a better file finder than a
  dedicated filer.

Using an Open box seems slow, because you've got to indicate the program
AND the file to load, whereas with clicking in a file manager, you only
specify the file.

However, to pick a figure, Archive (file compressor/extracter and the most
popular program I've written that loads files) has 4600 downloads for the
latest stable release, and noone's complained/noticed that it doesn't have
an Open dialog yet...

Someone did ask about an Open box in our text editor, but that's still
only one request in five years, and I'd expect more if 'most' people
opened files that way (although the editor itself is not very widely used).

Perhaps someone has figures from a larger sample?


-- 
Thomas Leonard			http://rox.sourceforge.net
tal00r at ecs.soton.ac.uk	tal197 at users.sourceforge.net
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