On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 17:43:17 -0800 (PST), Bryce Harrington > The main problem is that I typically work with files in large, complex
directory trees (e.g., openclipart, etc.) so often it is fastest for me to type the paths and filenames in, and then hit enter to load it. This does not work in inkscape (afaik),
Why, it does! Haven't you tried?
so I have to pick, scroll, pick, scroll, and eyeball for the file. I don't know if this is a GNOME thing or is something that can be overridden in Inkscape, but it is very annoying.
The only reason I agreed to the new file dialogs is that Ishmal restored the text input field that the Gnome folks removed in GTK 2.4. I agree that not having this field is an incredibly stupid limitation, but I don't understand why you blame Inkscape for it :) We are perhaps the only GTK 2.4+ app that does NOT suffer this problem.
And by the way in GTK 2.6 they added type-ahead find in the file list (I'm using it already). So now we have the best of both worlds: the regular filename field and the type-ahead find in the list.
The save dialog is also strange because it is laid out differently than the file dialog. The name is at the top of the dialog instead of in the same place as the load dialog, for instance. That seems very different from how one would expect. Also, with the save dialog it seems redundant to have 'Save in folder' as well as a tree view; it's confusing.
They are not redundant because enabling one disables the other, and vice versa. Normally the save dialog is folded up and does not have the full filedialog, which is when you use the "save in folder" drop-down. This and the position of the filename field might indeed be changed, but these are relatively minor issues, and I prefer to leave them to the GTK folks to fix in future versions. Changing the standard dialogs is only justified for really serious usability problems, such as the missing filename field.