Comments on: More takes on a Zeitgeist based Open File Dialog

By: Roshan

Roshan — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 17:43:54 +0000

How will this handle the situation where I have accessed the following files recently:

1. ~/project-1/INSTALL
2. ~/project-2/INSTALL

It would seem that this view would display two files named INSTALL with no information on how to distinguish the two.

By: Anil Wang

Anil Wang — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:50:57 +0000

Just a thought, a bridging concept between the folder and the Zeitgeist view is the concept of “group by”.

Suppose you add “Group by: Folder, Person, Time, etc” to the menu. When you switch to Group by: Folder, you’d get a file browsing view. Group by the others does the obvious things.

In any case, a Places shortcut menu is still important even in your use case to limit the search if you’re in a shared environment at work with thousands of computers.

By: Anil Wang

Anil Wang — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:24:34 +0000

Just a quick not, there are two use cases to consider, both equally common:
(1) You’ve never opened the file before — in which case a file dialog box is what you need
(2) You’ve opened the file before in the not too distant past. In which case this view is necessary.

Neither use case can be forgotten.

The current the GNOME 2.30 dialog box makes (1) easy and (2) possible with proper use of “Places” short cuts and a user’s memory.

Your dialog box gets (2) right but forgets about (1).

But even (2) needs a bit of polish. If you structure your directories into “template documents”, you’ll have several documents that have the same name but are different. How do you distinguish between them. To bring a coding example, you have 12 C projects, each in their own directory. The “template” for a project is to contain:
a readme.txt, a configure, a make file, a license.txt, an install.txt. If you’ve been working on all 12 of these projects, you may have 12 copies of “readme.txt” in your open dialog box. How do you distinguish between them quickly? With the “Places” short cuts, it’s easy since you can quickly go to your “projects” folder and browse each folder.

So please consider that there are many use cases.

By: Onno Steenbergen

Onno Steenbergen — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:55:27 +0000

Great idea only I would switch the searchfield and the buttons, so that the searchfield is right above the list of documents. So the entire left side is for specifying restrictions on the search.

And maybe some more differentiation between documents. A spreadsheet isn’t the same as a text document, but that would require for example some Apple like menu structure on the left

Main:
All
Documents
Videos
Audo
Images

When clicked on documents:
< Back
All
Text
Spreadsheet
Presentation

where back would show the main menu again.
Or display a Software Center type bar above instead of a back.

By: Tyson Diddley

Tyson Diddley — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:33:33 +0000

I like this version better.

I think that buttons/options should usually be placed horizontally, since the majority of screens today are wide screen. This leaves as much vertical room as possible for the content (in this case, search results).

By: Anton rehrl

Anton rehrl — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:38:27 +0000

I’ll throw in my 75c worth with the rest of the interwebs.
1)One thing I hate is a small “Open Document” dialog box. Make it big when it first opens so you can spatially click on the file you know is there.
2) The dialog should initially display the last files you worked with, and trail off the latest ones relevant to the application.
3)Less buttons is more. The majority of people will only work with recent files and cluttering the open box will degrade the user experience. Only show what is necessary and let the user add more refinements if they want.
4) Make it pink

Keep up the great work.

By: Klap-in

Klap-in — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 23:32:23 +0000

Maybe it is too much feeling.. But i think it will be more tidy to align the search box with the area that contains the icons? Now it ‘jumps’ to the left. So maybe the space left of the search box can contain some handy buttons.
Elementary Nautilus uses this idea also, it’s quite neat.

By: James

James — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:22:02 +0000

My mind is having a little trouble thinking about the complete paradigm shift but I can imagine when you get used to it it’ll be awesome.

Given it’s an open dialogue, the program will usually specify file type restriction, somewhat removing the need for the bar on the left.

Something important that is missing is advanced search… Use cases like ‘I know I worked on it about 4 months ago’ would mean at the moment you would have to set the history to 6 months and wade through all files accessed up to the present day.

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:15:22 +0000

I hope this would be implemented as a complete alternative view to the current filesystem view (with a way to switch between the two and remembering the previous state), rather than just replacing the Recent view.
Also, the search box can use tracker too, right? Also, if there is more metadata available, it should be displayed. e.g. in the audio view perhaps include artist/album if its there? MAYBE even album art if it was possible.
for going between the list and icon views, perhaps a button like in nautilus-elementary?

By: Conrad

Conrad — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:01:38 +0000

Related to Matteo’s comment: There should be a “directories” item on the left.

It’s a very common use case for me to open files that are in recently-used directories.

E.g. editing files in geany, then opening Nemiver to debug an executable in the same directory.