I really hate that new Linux filepicker in 1.5b1

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
rickst29
Posts: 182
Joined: January 22nd, 2003, 10:45 pm

Post by rickst29 »

I'd like to carefully, precisely, redefine the problem. It's NOT that "we should use the KDE FileChooser", but rather that the filechooser should support the following ELEMENTARY properties of a decent file-picking tool:

(1) Show, and allow the user to sort by, last-revised time. GtkFileChooser() sorts only by date, NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
(2) Provide, and allow the user to sort by, File Size. GtKFileChooser() doesn't offer us this column. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

Windows Explorer has had these two features since... Windows 95. GtkFileChooser() is about twelve years out-of-date, featurewise. GNome has a problem, but they don't give a rat's ass-- and FF has no complaint, it's up to us powerless individuals to whine, and submit English-only update code as an example... and get NADA. ZILCH. Because we're powerless individuals. We ask for help because GNome pays no attention to us mere users in this area.

(3) Firefox should call GtkFileChooser(), in the file-->open file call, with the option to select MULTIPLE FILES right in the call. (Tabbed browsing-- way back in the Mozilla 0.8 days, I was among the army voting to have Hyatt's brilliant idea made STANDARD.) But now, maybe Mozilla is to big... or "the powers that be" never use tabbed browsing, or they imagine that Google will control all of our documents....

Whatever. These things ain't happening, neither here (#3, which GtkFileChooser ALREADY Supports); nor there (#1 and #2, they refuse to do any enhancements, they only fix bugs).

I'll stand down from my soapbox, go back to my life of quiet desperation... :D
Make a fire FOR a man, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man ON fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
rickst29
Posts: 182
Joined: January 22nd, 2003, 10:45 pm

Post by rickst29 »

Interesting coaching from another Thread... toggling pref <b>ui.allow_platform_file_picker</b> to "false" still invokes the XUL filechooser, even on FF3 Tinderbox (which as I speak is very, very close to RC1). It would be nice to have some bookmarks, or display and sort by filtetype, but those ain't critical-- it's OK as it is, offering to open any of the "html" or any of the "image" files sorted by date-time, or sorted by filesize.

NICE !!!

Heck, if I REALLY want "bookmarks" to a bunch of local files, I could sorta fire up Apache on my own desktop.... with the right symlinks and careful .htaccess files, I got em!
Or, I could learn some XUL, maybe share bookmarking of local directories in FF4.... :x-mas:
Make a fire FOR a man, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man ON fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life!
Havin_it
Posts: 114
Joined: July 30th, 2004, 10:31 am

Post by Havin_it »

rickst29 wrote:Interesting coaching from another Thread... toggling pref <b>ui.allow_platform_file_picker</b> to "false" still invokes the XUL filechooser, even on FF3 Tinderbox (which as I speak is very, very close to RC1). It would be nice to have some bookmarks, or display and sort by filtetype, but those ain't critical-- it's OK as it is, offering to open any of the "html" or any of the "image" files sorted by date-time, or sorted by filesize.

NICE !!!


Never knew about this one, good tip! Although being on Gentoo, I can't remember at what point they did this but we now have a USE="filepicker" flag so you can build it to use the old picker :D

rickst29 wrote:Heck, if I REALLY want "bookmarks" to a bunch of local files, I could sorta fire up Apache on my own desktop.... with the right symlinks and careful .htaccess files, I got em!
Or, I could learn some XUL, maybe share bookmarking of local directories in FF4.... :x-mas:


Gotta be easier than hacking on GNOME. Go for it I say, I'd love to see that capability myself </self>
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