No filename tab completion in common "Save File As" window after upgrade from 10.12 to 11.3
Hello all!
tl;dr: I recently upgraded from Debian 10.12 to 11.3. In 10.12, GUI
applications that used the "standard" save-file-as window, including
Firefox and Mousepad (from Xfce), allowed me to tab-complete the file
name I wanted to save as. In 11.3, this seems to be broken. Is there
some kind of GTK or Xfce setting that will make this work again?
Long version:
-------------
I have a desktop PC, amd64 (x86_64) that was running Debian 10.12. A
few days ago, I upgraded it to Debian 11.3. I use sysvinit, Xorg, and
Xfce - full list below under "Software stack".
What used to work:
------------------
Under 10.12, some GUI programs, notably Firefox, seemed to use a
"standard" save-file-as window. I *think* it's GtkFileChooser but it
might be something else.
If I had a directory containing files named like
data-2022-01.txt
data-2022-02.txt
data-2022-03.txt
and I wanted to save a new file in that directory, I could click the
"save as" menu option in the program, click in the file name box, type
d a t , hit Tab, and the file name would fill in as far as it could -
in this example, it would fill in with "data-2022-0". I could then
further edit the filename as I wished, hit the "save" button, and the
new file would be saved under that name.
What broke:
-----------
Under 11.3, tab-complete doesn't work anymore. I can click the "save
as" menu option in the program, click in the file name box, and type
d a t . When I do that, I get a drop-down list of possible file names
underneath the file name box. However, as soon as I hit Tab, that
drop-down list closes, and nothing fills in in the file name box.
I expected that when I hit Tab, the file name box would fill in as far
as it could, like with "data-2022-0" in this example.
Where I see the break:
----------------------
Firefox and mousepad (Xfce's simple text editor) show this behavior.
Other applications may show it as well, but I haven't checked
everything.
What isn't broken:
------------------
GIMP does *not* show this behavior. Then again, it seems to be using
a different "save-as" window, or a more customized version, than Firefox
and mousepad do.
LibreOffice does *not* show this behavior. Then again, it seems to use
its own unique "save-as" window.
Filename completion with the tab key on the command line, like in bash
in either an xterm or on the console, is still working OK.
What I tried to fix it:
-----------------------
Since more than one application has the same problem, I *think* it's
something at the desktop environment / X toolkit / X level, rather than
application specific.
I looked through the Xfce settings ("X-mouse" button > Settings >
several things) and changed a few things that seemed related, but with
no effect.
I ran gtk-query-settings and looked for any existing options that seemed
to be relevant, but I couldn't find any.
I ran a Web search and found some prior complaints about this problem,
but nearly all of them were relatively old (2011 and before). Some of
the complaints mentioned changes in the way GtkFileChooser worked in
different versions or releases of GTK.
There were a few references to using either Ctrl-I or Ctrl-L to turn
tab completion on and off when typing a file name in that window. I
tried both of them but they didn't seem to have any effect.
Software stack:
---------------
This is a partial list, obtained from dpkg. If it would be helpful to
know the version of additional packages, please let me know.
linux-image-5.10.0-15-amd64 5.10.120-1
sysvinit-core 2.96-7+deb11u1
xserver-xorg 1:7.7+22
xserver-xorg-core 2:1.20.11-1+deb11u1
xfce4 4.16
libgtk2.0-0:amd64 2.24.33-2
libgtk-3-0:amd64 3.24.24-4+deb11u2
firefox-esr 91.10.0esr-1~deb11u1
mousepad 0.5.2-1
What I am looking for:
----------------------
Hopefully, there is some kind of GTK or Xfce setting that will make this
work again.
If not, I would like to know the most appropriate package to file a bug
against.
Thanks!
Matt Roberds
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