I have been pissed at the open file dialog for a while now and decided to make use of Zeitgeist to hack up a new one from scratch. I decided to use the concepts from Elementary’s Sezen for a Search Dialog…
The nice thing is we killed 2 birds with one stone here.
We have a prototype for a search and a open file dialog in one…
With Zeitgeist we will be able to associate other recent or most used files from other apps. The search is live too 
I am now asking you guys here to tell me what you think of the 2 different views…
This is a functioning prototype that will be released with the next Zeitgeist if there is any demand and positive feedback…
* UPDATE #1:
I modified the UI again hope this is good enough keep criticizing where to move the widgets…
To explain a bit the arrows navigate in time between “Today, Last 2 Days, This Week, …., This Year, All Time”. “Latest and Popular” are for sorting latest being recently used and popular being most used.
* UPDATE #2:
More improvements done… it should look a bit more like danrabbits mockups…
There is another implementation I was playing with…
{ 49 } Comments
Pretty good. I can certainly see a lot of good uses for this!
However, what if I want to open a file I haven’t opened recently? How does it handle that?
Yeah, the open file dialog as it stands now sucks.
I like the first one. Something about me just doesn’t like things at the bottom of windows.
Looking pretty sweet! The first view is much better.
I don’t like that the second one has tabs/buttons on the bottom. But I do like the text instead of icons in the toolbar of the second one.
My vote’s on the first one, too.
I always hated the “open dialog” but those mock-ups rock!
I usually prefer icons instead of text, but those icons are crappy, especially the ones for documents and images.
I agree with Lucas. Tabs on top but with text instead of buttons.
And I have the same question as Dieki – what if I haven’t used the file I want to open in for a long time?
But I don’t like the current open file-dialog, so good to see some ideas on the table
Btw, what gtk/metacity/icon theme are you using?
Have you seen DanRabbit’s mockup at http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/#/d2mlf1u
Kris Thomsen: this should get you started, http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/search/label/elementary
The DanRabbit mockup blows the 2 above out of the water! But if I would have to choose one of the above, i would pick nr 1. The tabs at the bottom are a big No-No
Well i tried to go away from the mockups sincd they force the the window to have a relatively large size on a netbook…
Though the specific icons you’re using could stand to be improved, the use of icons instead of text, I think, works just fine.
I also prefer the first, but my two criticisms are that (a) it’s not clear that the “Latest”/”Popular” buttons are a toggle (other than conceptually), and (b) I wouldn’t know what to expect from clicking either of the two green arrows.
And there does need to be a way to navigate a conventional directory structure if you want.
I think you may be trying to over-simplify?
the first one is my favorite but it has to have a “normal” folder view as a third option on “Latest|Popular|Folders”. Zeitgeist is a very good extension of file handling but what if i know where my file is and it is never used before
Zeitgeist has not to replace the normal file handling but extend it to the next level!
I really love them! The 1st one specially.
I think a “Save-as” dialog could be important too. Because the actual one only handles the hyerarchical pardigm (folders). The search box of your mockup would probably filter metadata too, so a Save-as dialog with those capabilities (eg. tags) would be great.
GUYS I DID AN UPDATE
Nice… it definitely needs a way to go to folder browsing mode though… and another button would be too much. How about a dropbox with tickable items for the file type, and a third button on the right named folders?
You need 2 lines for the filenames ( or a smaller font), the mp3 icon is ugly, looks like a document than a music file.
Nice work, it is too good for Gnome3.
+ A common problem with search GUI. Most of them provide predefined categories (document, image, video, audio). The main problem are teachers who want to differentiate PDF from all other doc; a designer that want to differentiate vectorial from bipmap pictures; and so on… A lot of people use their OS with a main domain that needs differentiation and specificity because inside one category, the number of created files is fairly too large.
+ And hope we can use text rather than icon to list files.
+ Prefer icons : smaller. Text are nice, but I don’t care once I use softwares and OS.
I think this is great, and I want to give my thoughts on the usability of the layout of the 5 elements (Search, Back/Forward, Time, Type Filter and Latest/Popular), but I’m finding it difficult because I’m not sure of the exact function of each (which I think indicates it could be more usable).
I assume that being Zeitgeist-powered no folders will ever be displayed. Therefore I guess the back/foward buttons will switch between different filter configurations, i.e. clicking back might automatically change the Type and Latest/Popular filters. If this is true then the back/forward buttons *need* to be on the row above to communicate this hierarchal relationship, which is impossible to infer otherwise other than through experience.
The same concept applies to the search bar. Does going backwards or forwards change the search text or does it persists? I would be very surprised if the text in a search box suddenly disappeared without my express intent. Therefore the search bar should be on the same row as the arrows to communicate that neither has control over the other. Doing this you unfortunately communicate that the search box somehow affects the filters, but I think that since there’s no obvious way for it to do so other than randomly, then this is OK.
I’m not sure how the time control works, but basically if it’s affected by the arrows, it goes on the lower row, otherwise top row.
Sorry for the long post but I like to be thorough
Yeah, a new Dialog would be nice
But don’t settle for “good enough”
Oh, and if you really want a to mode-switch between latest and popular, why not use the gtkmodebutton from here: http://github.com/chergert/custom-gtk-widgets
The new one seems perfect.
THis looks really really good!
I think the term ‘popular’ is wrong, unless the files have been tagged by a social network. Popular refers to ‘the people’, thus to something used or liked by many different people. These will be my personal files and I do not want others to ‘Like’ of ‘Digg’ them
.
Usable alternatives from the thesaurus: hot, favorite, preferred, liked, wanted, noted, prominent,
New/Just used could also be a choice. The longer text means the UI might become different though.
HI!
Can you post a mockup of possible problem with DanRabbits work in netbook.
Also can http://danrabbit.deviantart.com/#/d2mwol4
be implemented as well.
This will greatly improve productivity
To explain a bit the arrows navigate in time between “Today, Last 2 Days, This Week, …., This Year, All Time”. “Latest and Popular” are for sorting
latest being recently used and popular being most used.
@Seif Sallam: I am in egypt for a week
I DID AN UPDATE
Bookmarks:
what about the bookmarks? Are they going to die in Gnome 3.0?
Filesystem:
Can’t I get access to the hirachical filesystem? Latest – Popular – Filesystem would be ideal.
Timeline:
I’m definitly a power user, but sometimes I don’t access my desktop for 3, 4 weeks. I won’t be able to remember creation or editing dates, and I’m not willing to remember that. -> Filesystem access please.
Yah I would love to have a filesystem access. It’s definitely useful if I want to access a file in a particular folder that I have never accessed recently. Please! Other than that this is definitely an improvement!
Great actually, but make a fallback to traditional folder view possible in the same view.
Also, folders, not just documents should be accessible under recently used. If you have opened or saved a document in a folder in a given time period, it should be listed under recent.
Smooth move showing your illegally downloaded show episodes in the concept mock-ups.
Is the last one, Screenshot-7, mockup or code (where)?
What about adding a side-panel like in the common file chooser. It can be used :
— for navigation in a usual « filesystem » view ;
— opening devices and non-zeitgeist folder (usb key, tmp folder…)
— one more filter for the « zeitgeist » view (let’s say I know my file is in « Documents » or « Dev » folder, i can tell zeitgeist to only show me files from this sub-tree.
Anyway, realy great. I hope gnome dev hear you and think about adding this in gnome3.
@Omne: They won’t because nautilus(together w/ the file choser) is gnome’s holy grail. I will jump off a cliff if they wil
Nice, but I don’t think you need a whole line for the text box. Just put some controls on the same line, this allows you to make the other one less crowded.
Hi!
I believe the word “popular” is misleading since the definition is “regarded with favor, approval, or affection by people in general” and you are, usually, the only user of the desktop. I think “most used” is better suited for what you have in mind.
That being said I love the way you are going, great job, it is high time to dust this old interface!
It’s seems strange for me that no one ask it before : for an “open dialog” where is the damn “open” button ?
For usability reason it seems for me a bad idea to remove the main button of the dialog…
No ? Tell me… maybe i’m missing something.
Except that the mockups seems great except I can’t see the way to navigate in a classical non zeitgeist way.
i would stick to Danrabbit mockup (how surprising?
) with the possible choice between icon and text and invert the search bar with the common “toolbar” like you’ve done in the firsts propositions. Anyway theses are details and you’re doing an excellent work 
May i add the possibility of a list view? because i am not sure an icon view is ideal when u got many files and list view are really practical to read some additional informations about the files and ideal for sorting.
no need of an open button, u just click on the file u want to open or press return and here we go.
i just wanted to add that the arrow back and forward can mislead users because when u see theses type of icons u think of an history behavior (yes habbits ..) + and – seems better in this case.
This looks amazing!
Filtering for file types in an open-file dialog is so extremely useful, great someone is working on getting all this stuff done
Zeitgeist team rocks!
Why not just do this:
- Add Zeitgeist to Nautilus (Elementary)
- Then add a “File Dialog Mode” to Nautilus, which would show an extra widget bar below the statusbar, containing a gtkEntry and a couple of gtkButtons.
For example, for the Open File Dialog, the bottom bar would look like:
“Filename: _____ [Cancel][Open]“
can’t wait but we need to see it in nautulis elemnetary
Simply awesome!! :O
You rock man
Personally I really like the “alternative version” in which you put captions “Today”, “Yesterday”,… in the scrolled window: it gives me the idea that I won’t have to click on a button if I realize that what I am looking for actually belongs to “last week” instead of “yesterday”: scrolling down is usually faster than aiming at another button.
1) Nice
2) What if I want that document that I know I saved during a conference in Oct 2008. Those time interval buttons are nice, but I want to be able to limit the timeframe away from “until now”. f-spot had (has?) these nice sliders that allow you to limit the timeframe. I would want to be able to use something like that.
3) Videos/Documents/Pictures are nice, but not fine-grained enough. I want to search for that .odt document, or that .pdf one. Also, I believe you’ll have tags with docs, right? I want to search for that .pdf that I tagged as “work” and “project B” and not only search for filenames. Would that work now?
One thing that drives me barking mad with the current Open dialog is that I cannot browse the *folder* of an item from Recent Documents, I must either choose that item or navigate to its folder manually, ignoring Recent Documents altogether.
@spaetz: That would certainly make things even more interesting!
IMHO the last one is the best
Finally got home to listen to this. I like Maroon 5 and i love Christina. I was worried if i wouldn’t like the song though, but i do I can see what you mean about Christina’s part, it is a very small part. I would of still liked the song if she wasn’t in it, but she makes me like it more.
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