430532 - GTK+ File-Open Dialog is HORRIBLY Slow

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[David F. Skoll]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008032619 Firefox/3.0b5
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008032619 Firefox/3.0b5

The native GTK+ file open dialog is horribly slow.  It takes tens of seconds to navigate into a directory with many files.  The only way to make Firefox usable is to set ui.allow_platform_file_picker to false.

I recommend:

1) Setting ui.allow_platform_file_picker to false for 3.0-release (at least on Linux)

2) Filing a bug with the GTK+ maintainers to fix their stupid file browser.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Choose "File : Open"
2. Navigate to a directory with lots of files (/usr/bin, for example)
3. Sit and wait.  And wait.  And make coffee.  And wait some more.
Actual Results:  
Slowness

Expected Results:  
Quick opening of directory

Comment 1

[Joe Drew (not getting mail)]

Sorry, you'll have to take it up with the GTK developers. I don't think there's any intention to turn off the GTK+ filechooser.

Comment 2

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

David, do you see the same issue with the GTK+ filepicker in other GTK apps, or is it specific to firefox?

Comment 3

[David F. Skoll]

Boris,

I don't use many GNOME apps, but I believe the GTK+ filepicker is just plain broken... yes, in GIMP too it's painfully slow.

I'm not asking you to remove support for the GTK+ filepicker, just to make it non-default.

Regards,

David.

Comment 4

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

David, while I sympathize with the sentiment (and have the pref changed myself), the reality is that GNOME users seem to prefer to use that filepicker for some reason...

I do think it's worth filing a bug on it with the GTK folks.

Comment 5

[David F. Skoll]

Thanks, bug filed on GTK: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=529811