103630 - File Box Selection is not user friendly

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect)

Description

[Brice Lecomte]

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20010915
user can't enter a directory path to look for files in the used file selection box
called from Save as, save Frame as, ...

not really cool to navigate stage by stage
and further more, if a partition is automounted, it won't appear in the list unless
it has been previously automounted by another access to one of its
directories/files.

second one is filter type which is also too strict. user can't enter a filter and
has to choose in a option list of one element !

Comment 1

[Elmar Ludwig]

Actually, you can enter a directory path into the "File Name:" field
(which in fact may be non-obvious, but really works quite well). Just
type or paste the path and press Return.

Regarding automounting:
I don't think there is anything Mozilla can do about this. It's just the
way the automount "magic" works. If a directory isn't mounted, it does
not exist in the file system, and it won't show up in the file selector.

The file type filter is mostly useful when opening files, not when saving
(at least for me). It would certainly benefit from beeing editable.

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

XP apps.

Comment 3

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

file picker?

Comment 4

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

Yes, the filename field is used to enter a directory, like the GTK filepicker. 
I don't know of _any_ filepicker out there that automounts, and I'm not sure it
would be feasible to do so.

User-defined filters would be an ok RFE, but please file it as a separate bug. 
A bug should cover one particular problem, not just a general list of gripes
about a component.

Comment 5

[Brice Lecomte]

ok, I do agree with "one bug - one gripe"
what about just this one I feel as a regression one.
from the (good) old XmFileSelectionBox, user was able to enter a directory to 
search from and not only has to navigate up and down through parent and son
path.
Look at previous version such as Netscape4.76 (m18)
 I believe the file handling was better before.
should I build mozilla with motif ? Would this be a workaround ?

Comment 6

[Brian Ryner (not reading)]

I repeat: you can enter a directory to go to directly in the filename box.  And
what does Netscape 4.76 have to do with M18?

Comment 7

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

mass verification of Invalid bugs: to find all bugspam pertaining to this,
set your search string to "MagaritaLuisaChascarilloAvoidsInvalidBugs".

if you think this particular bug is *still* an open issue, please make sure of
the following before reopening:

a. where relevant, do check that it's actually still a problem with ***recent
trunk builds*** on the all appropriate platform[s]

b. provide clear, compelling reasons why this bug should be considered a valid one.