334878 - "Attach" file browser has no pathname prompt, or onscreen indication of how to access one

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 317104

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Greg Ercolano]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050225 Firefox/1.0.1
Build Identifier: 1.5.0.2 (20060420)

The file browser needs a pathname prompt.

I accidentally found that if I type a leading '/', a browser comes up, but only after a lot of head scratching. And there are problems with that dialog (outlined below under 'Additional Info')

There needs to be some kind of on screen indication of how to enable the pathname prompt, and I would advise, once enabled, it /stay/ enabled in subsequent openings of all file dialogs. (ie. "remembered" as a preference) 
This 'no pathname prompt' in file browsers was I think started by Apple, who brazenly removed pathname input fields to decrease onscreen noise for novices, but leaves experts high and dry with having to do extra operations each time a dialog opens.

The biggest problem is there's no onscreen indication of how to enable the pathname prompt, and the prompt can not be simply be enabled and stay enabled as a default whenever file browser dialogs are opened.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Compose a new message
2. Click 'Attach'
3. File browser opens with *no pathname prompt*




Expected Results:  
A button of some kind to enable the pathname prompt as part of the dialog, and a way to make that 'stick' for subsequent file browser invocations.

If you type '/' a secondary dialog appears prompting for the pathname, but the current directory is not already specified, so that pathname corrections can be made to the existing directory.

Also, drag and drop doesn't work for this secondary dialog. ie. you can't drag+drop one of the pathnames from the underlying browser into the text field,
and have it paste the complete pathname.

Comment 1

[Elmar Ludwig]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 317104 ***