306546 - filepicker usability bad when picking a folder to save files in

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Description

[Malte Cornils]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.3; Linux) KHTML/3.3.2 (like Gecko)
Build Identifier: 1.0.2 Debian sarge version

Usability-testing revealed a certain flaw in thunderbird (and likely firefox).  
If the filepicker is used to select a folder to save stuff in (like it is with  
"Save all attachments", usability is broken.   
a) it's not so intuitive that you can't enter your destination folder (you have  
to be not in the destination folder, but one layer above that, so you see it in  
the filepicker. Select it by single-clicking and then you can choose it as your  
destination folder).  
b) creating a new folder actually places you *inside* the new folder. When not  
saving single files but choosing a directory, this is harmful, since (see  
above) it means the user has to go up one folder from the newly created one,  
select that and click "choose". sHe can't create a new folder and press  
"Choose" immediately.  
The user was not able to use the "save all.." feature without external help. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open a message with multiple attachments   
2. right-click on one of them  
3. select "save all"  
4. Click "create new folder" 
   
Actual Results:  
One is dropped in the new folder, but "Choose" is disabled (folders can only be 
selected one layer above) 

Expected Results:  
Either don't place user in the new folder but one layer above (though bad for 
the single-file case) or allow the user to press choose when inside the 
destination folder

Comment 1

[Adam Guthrie]

This is a system filepicker issue, not a Thunderbird issue.

Comment 2

[Malte Cornils]

What do you mean by "system filepicker"? I'm not using platform-native widgets  
here, but the XPCOM-provided ones. However, you're right that they are general  
Mozilla framework widgets and not specific to thunderbird, as I hinted at in my  
initial description. I was not able to quickly find a case where "save in a  
folder" is used in firefox, so I reported this one on thunderbird. Feel free to  
change Product (would you agree on "Toolkit"?) and/or component. 

Comment 3

[Adam Guthrie]

Please provide a screenshot of the dialog you're talking about.

Comment 4

[Malte Cornils]

Attachment: File picker in action (having just created a new folder)