Re: File open dialog: Where is my tab extension

["Marcelo E. Magallon" <mmagallo@debian.org>]

On Sat, Jul 17, 2004 at 06:17:15PM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote:

 > Because it is an inappropriate issue to solve at the distribution
 > level, and will not be usefully solved within Debian without upstream
 > participation. If you want to solve some classes of problems, you
 > need to deal with upstream.

 Hmm...

 I tend to agree with Sven.  I don't want to deal with upstream GNOME, I
 just don't have the time nor the skin.  I have occasionally dealt with
 Epiphany's upstream, for the sole reason that I'd like to have a
 Gecko-/GTK+-based web browser that's simple, fast and integrates well
 with the rest of the GTK+ applications that I use (and to some extend
 with GNOME applications, too -- e.g. I like having a single print
 dialog).  Upstream and I agree on what "fast" and "integrates" means.
 We don't agree on what "simple" means.  Upstream by large shares
 "GNOME's" definition of simple: little configurability (the less is
 more way of thinking which some HCI _professionals_ advocate); shallow
 (or totally absent) hierarchies; guessing of the user's intentions
 (which has been confused over and over with "provide good defaults").

 Point is, GNOME aggregates a set of people who want to provide a
 "simple and usable user experience" and have ... let me say "realized"
 for lack of a better word ... that this is not just wild guessing but
 instead a well established _field of research_.  These people have
 found themselves agreeing with one school of though within this field
 of research and have taken the task of turning academic papers into an
 actual implementation.  Having worked with HIC people I can say they
 rarely implement complete systems, they tend of test ideas.  Given that
 this is _research_ there are ideas which are bound to be _bad_.  That's
 not a problem per se, the problem comes when people, mostly not doing
 actual development, equate GNOME with "usable": since it comes from
 GNOME, and these guys pay attention to usability, it's per definition
 usable.

 That's more or less the reason why I don't want to deal with GNOME's
 upstream.  Let the people who _must_ be familiar with upstream deal
 with upstream.  Upstream will be more confortable dealing with known
 contributing subjects and I'll be more happy not having to deal with
 them.  The problem I have faced multiple times is that some of the
 (sadly most vocal, too) people I have _chosen_ to deal with (this
 blurry mass otherwise known as the "Debian GNOME Team") belong in this
 "GNOME = usable" group.

 (Needless to say, there are some very friendly, reasonable and helpful
 maintainers within the GNOME time, Josseline and Edd come to mind)

 I liked GTK+ 1.somehitng file dialog very much.  It had tab completion
 and it was simple.  I hate Windows' file dialogs, they tend to be too
 complex (3.1's was complex but usable, 95's was plain complex, XP's is
 unusable).  I hate KDE's, too (too cluttered, I can't find the simple
 things I need).  And I'm starting to hate GNOME's (lacking
 type-ahead-like functionality, a text entry box, filters).  Given that
 a file dialog does the equivalent of this:

    vector<filename> = file_dialog(directory);

 where _exactly_ is the problem of turning "file_dialog" into a pointer
 to a function? (and giving me a _simple_ -- gconf, please don't apply
 -- way of choosing it?)

-- 
Marcelo