35339 - `Open in new window' option for Open File dialog in Navigator

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Mike Cornall]

This is related to the discussion in bug# 22342 (also 34752, and 35069)
regarding whether the "Open File" dialogue should use the same window or open a
new one.

Please add an "Open New Window?" flag to the "Open File" dialogue to allow me to
choose whether to use the same window or open a new one. You can default the
flag to "Yes" every time, or better yet, allow me to set the default behaviour.

Note that, in Composer, if the user chooses to use the same window, it could
trigger a "Do You Want To Save?" dialogue. In that case, the user must have the
option to cancel out of the "Open File" dialogue altogether, so that he stays in
edit on the original file without saving.

Similarly, I would like the "File|New" menu in Composer to have separate choices
for a new "Composer Window" and a "Blank Page", with the latter simply clearing
the current window.

This option would make me very happy. I've always found it extremely annoying
that, when I finish with one file, and I want to edit another one, Composer
insists on opening a new window, forcing me to close the old window, and
reposition the new one where I already had the old one. No other editor makes me
do this (IIRC).

Actually, if you want to do something really cool, allow me to drag file names
from the "Open" dialogue into the window of my choice (without closing the
"Open" dialogue). That way, I could quickly scan through a whole series of files
to find what I want. As an experiment, I just tried dragging file links from the
Netscape browser into Composer (Ver 4.72), and Composer still ends up opening a
new window. Aargh.

Better yet, add a new "Directory Browser" tool, that I can leave open all the
time to drag files into any app. On the other hand, as long as drag-n-drop is
working properly between Mozilla and other products (which isn't true yet for
Linux), then I can drag files from my file manager. Regardless, I don't want to
use a Browser window, because I don't want to resize it.

Better yet, put a "Directory Browser" tool in "My Sidebar". Then I could quickly
look through a series of files, without opening up the "File" menu, and the
expected behaviour would be for the file to appear in the current window.

Comment 1

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

RFE, so confirming. However, I believe File | Open uses native dialogs, so this 
can't happen. But I could be wrong.

Gerv

Comment 2

[don]

German, what would you like to do about this one?

Comment 3

[german]

Any objections to using the same structure as in Nav: Open Location is a two step 

process: 1. XP dialog with an option to open either file or web loc, once file is 

chosen it display the standard OS getfile. Open File would do the operating 

system thing (which yes cannot be extended or altered through XPFE). That way 

users see it once and can apply that across apps. Makes it consistent with Nav.

Comment 4

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

> I've always found it extremely annoying that, when I finish with one file, and
> I want to edit another one, Composer insists on opening a new window, forcing
> me to close the old window, and reposition the new one where I already had the
> old one. No other editor makes me do this (IIRC).

What der hey? No editors I know of (besides Unix oddities such as emacs and vi)
*do* reuse the same window as was used for the previous document. The prospect of 
Mozilla throwing up a `Save changes to Untitled?' dialog, when you have just 
finished selecting a file you want to *open*, is truly frightening from a 
usability perspective.

The real bug here, I think, is that new Composer windows on Linux apparently 
aren't reusing the position of the last-closed window, making the bug reporter 
reposition the new window each time. (Law, is one of
<http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?product=Browser&product=MailNews&
short_desc=position+window&short_desc_type=allwords> the right bug for this, or 
should there be a new bug?)

German's suggestion seems orthogonal to this bug ... or maybe I just don't 
understand what he's saying, which wouldn't be surprising at this time of night.

Comment 5

[german]

Reading the bug a second time I understand now the reporting seems to be mostly 
referring to Composer. As inidcated earlier in bug 22342, based on usability 
findings of Navigator we are seeing more benefits in by default re-using the 
current window. In composer though I agree we should never re-use the current 
window, instead always open a new one. 

Comment 6

[german]

Reading the bug a second time I understand now the reporting seems to be mostly 

referring to Composer. As inidcated earlier in bug 22342, based on usability 

findings of Navigator we are seeing more benefits in by default re-using the 

current window. In composer though I agree we should never re-use the current 

window, instead always open a new one. 

Comment 7

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

So that would be a WONTFIX then, German?

Comment 8

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Actually, if no-one objects I'm going to narrow this bug down to ask for an `Open 
in new window' checkbox in the Open File dialog for Navigator. The other ideas in 
the original report seem highly non-intuitive, but this one is a good one.

While it is expected behavior to open a file/location in the existing window, 
users may occasionally want to open it in a new window; and the requirement for 
the user to create a new browser window first (*before* they select the Open 
command) may not be that intuitive. The Open Location dialog allows this, so the 
Open File dialog should too.

This means work fiddling with the native dialogs on each platform -- but if 
German's proposal of 2000-05-26 was taken up (and `Open ...' was turned into a 
single command), that work would not be necessary.

Comment 9

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

*** Bug 47196 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[Mike Cornall]

As the original submitor, I agree with Matthew's decision to narrow this down to
the `Open in new window' checkbox.  I was blue-skying when I wrote the other
ideas, and I got rather sloppy about it at that.  Looking over what I wrote,
there is one other good idea in there, but don't worry about it, because I'll
resubmit it later, properly, as a suggestion for a new feature.

I gather that you are leaning toward allowing the user to open a new file in the
same window, but only in Navigator.  I am happy that my suggestion may have
helped you resolve that case.

Unfortunately, as German pointed out, I am personally more interested in having
this capability in Composer.  Let me give you an example, and explain why I like
it to work this way.

One example of an editor that works the way I like (with regard to opening
files) is KDE's kedit.  Included in kedit's file menu are the following three
options:

> New... - Start a new file (i.e. clear the window).
> Open... - Open a file (in the same window).
> New_Window - Open a new (empty) kedit window.

One's preferences depend on how one normally tends to work.  I tend to work
serially, which means that usually, after I have finished with and saved one
file, I want to put it away, and start working on another file.  With kedit,
this takes one step:

1. File | Open...

For those times when I do want to open a second window to edit a second file, it
takes two steps:

1. File | New_Window
2. File | Open

With Composer, however, the situation is reversed, and the second case (opening
a file in a new window) only takes one step.  But the first case (opening a file
in the same window -- the thing I do most often) takes multiple steps:

1. File | Window
2. Swap windows
3. Close old window
4. Reposition new window

Now as Matthew pointed out, by using a different window manager I might be able
to avoid the fourth step.  That assumes, of course, that the window manager can
tell the difference between a Composer window (which I want in the upper-right),
and a Navigator window (which I want to cascade down from the upper-left).

But even without the fourth step, I'm still left with three steps, and the fact
is that everything after the first step frustrates me, because I view it as
unnecessary clean-up work caused by the fact that the editor doesn't let me do
what I really want.

There is another situation where having Composer open a new window makes it hard
for me to work the way I like.

There are times when I want to look through, and possible modify, dozens of
files.  When I do that, I like to have the list of files in a File Manager or
Navigator window on the left side of the screen, and one or two editor windows
on the right side of the screen.  Then I work my way through the list, jumping
from one file to another, by dragging names from the window on the left into the
editor windows on the right.  Because Composer always opens a new window, even
when dragging in a file name, it interferes with my technique.  Also, I find it
disconcerting to drag a link into a window, only to have the result end up in a
new window instead.

Now, obviously, not everyone works the way I do, and thus there should be a
user-preference setting to control Composer's file-open behaviour.  Having said
that, it's probably not a good idea to try to do it in the current release.  But
I would like to see such a preference setting for Composer in a future release.

Comment 11

[Mike Cornall]

Oops.  If it wasn't obvious, that list of multiple steps should have been:

1. File | Open...   (not File | Window)
2. Swap windows
3. Close old window
4. Reposition new window

Comment 12

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Sorry Mike, but you're a very marginal edge case here. No other popular editor 
works the way you describe. (Editors like emacs open new files in the existing 
window, but they leave the existing file open too, which is not what you want.)

Comment 13

[german]

This bug is no longer valid, as open in composer does now open in a new window
while nav opens in the same window which seems to be the gist of this
discussion. So if nobody thinks other wise we should mark it closed (prob wontfix?)
Propose assigning this to Ben to have a look as the mozilla Ui owner.

Comment 14

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

No, this bug is obviously still valid. As described in the bug summary and in the 
reporter's 2000-08-02 comment, the bug is no longer about Composer; and there is 
still no `Open in new window' checkbox in the Open File dialog for Navigator.

Comment 15

[Paul Chen]

nav triage team:

Nice to have, but don't think we'll get around to in for beta1. Marking nsbeta1-

Comment 16

[Paul Chen]

Marking nsbeta1- bugs as future to get off the radar

Comment 17

[Jesse Ruderman]

> `Open in new window' option for Open File dialog in Navigator

FWIW, Internet Explorer's solution is to include a "browse..." button in the 
Ctrl+O dialog.  That way, the options available for opening web urls are 
automatically available when opening local files.

Comment 18

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

This is supported in the Open Location dialog, which allows you to choose 
files. The native file picker dialog cannot be modified to include this item so 
we won't be adding it there. WONTFIX. 

Comment 19

[sairuh (rarely reading bugmail)]

v