867544 - Separate "Name" and "Save in Folder" fields in Print dialog are less than ideal

Status: NEW

(Core :: Printing: Setup, defect)

Description

[Stephan Sokolow]

I'm not sure about Windows or MacOS, but in the GTK+-backed builds of Firefox, the print dialog uses separate fields for "Name" and "Save in folder" when "Print to file" is selected.

This approach is not only unlike any other place I know in the Firefox UI but is very unhelpful compared to how the rest of the browser does things.

It'd be much better to just pick the entire target path using the same GTK+ file chooser. (of type GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_SAVE).

In addition to matching the behaviour of other applications on the system, it'd have productivity benefits. (The current solution makes it frustrating than it needs to be to generate the new filename from an existing one)

For example:
1. Taking the name of a previously-generated PDF and incrementing a number if you're printing multiple pages of results off a website.
2. Taking the auto-generated name of a "Save Page As..." HTML file and switching in a PDF extension.

If you want to keep the current interaction flow, I'd suggest using the same kind of compound widget used for <input type="file"> (a text field with a Browse button) modified to trigger a save dialog rather than an open dialog.

Comment 1

[[:Aleksej]]

old: 2008-01-17-04-trunk-firefox-3.0b3pre.en-US.linux-i686
bug: 2008-01-18-04-trunk-firefox-3.0b3pre.en-US.linux-i686
→ bug 193001

That's GNOME's native dialog, which is also used in gedit.