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GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

jayfax.neocities.org

71–80 of 756 posts

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#72
post #37

So I just checked on my install (Gnome 3.38.2, Debian testing) and all the GTKFileChooser windows I could find had the thumbnails representing the underlying images. Interestingly I checked a few apps I have installed through Flatpak, and they generally didn't have thumbnails for the same dialogues, although sometimes did for the "recents". Unless this has been recently added as a feature, it sounds more like he has…

After a downvote encouraged me to re-read the article more carefully it seems the OP wants to be able to see only the thumbnail (and maybe the filename) - not a thumbnail that is part of the list view with further details.

Older builds of Gnome only seemed to use the generic icon for the file type, so it does sound like there has been progress here - if not enough to satisfy the OP.

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#73

In this time and age, do we really need "desktops"? If you only need a full-screen terminal and a full-screen browser (as is the case for many people), the whole desktop thing is unnecessary clutter.

A desktop for most people is a crutch (plunger) for their disorganized computer (clogged toilet). I think the suggestion that desktops aren't necessary is a good one.

Several years ago, I started turning desktop icons off (both GNOME and Windows make this easy) and it really helped my organization, as I was then forced to competently organize files into Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Videos directories instead of vomiting everything onto the desktop. Simply _knowing_ where files are located is faster than scanning a cluttered desktop.

As a bonus I don't ever have to worry about the positions of my desktop icons changing.

File picker definitely needs thumbnails though.

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#74
post #27

There's more serious reasons this file picker is broken. Here's a trivial to reproduce and obvious issue that's been there for several years now: 1. Open a directory that loads slowly (e.g. one with thousands of files on a smb3 mount) 2. While the list is loading, select a file (but do not open it) 3. Wait for the whole list to load Once the list finishes loading, the file on the very top of the list gets automatical…

Many years ago I was a hit by a bug in the Gnome file chooser (on ubuntu) that selected a random sibling file in the same directory. Caused me to accidentally upload something I definetely didn't want to publish.

In fact I have never since directly uploaded anything from my own personal file directories, instead I make a copy of it under /tmp for the upload process.

Not sure if this is the same bug you are talking about

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#75
post #29

This has somehow gotten worse in recent years. When saving, it used to be you could use the mouse to navigate to a directory, then type the desired filename, and press enter. Now, typing the filename initiates a contextual search within the current directory. Clicking in the filename textbox and starting to type doesn’t work either. You have to highlight the base (not the extension or “.”) of the filename. At that po…

Doing some introspection (all too rare for me!), I find that this is the reason I've started avoiding creating new files in LibreOffice, and why my Downloads and Pictures folders are flat, unstructured messes. Too many programs use the GNOME file selector.

Isn’t that “better” in some sense? You don’t have to actually categorize anything in order to find it later. Just type what you want and let tracker pull it up for you.

If I could just “accio my black jeans” I wouldn’t bother organizing my closet.

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#76
post #27

There's more serious reasons this file picker is broken. Here's a trivial to reproduce and obvious issue that's been there for several years now: 1. Open a directory that loads slowly (e.g. one with thousands of files on a smb3 mount) 2. While the list is loading, select a file (but do not open it) 3. Wait for the whole list to load Once the list finishes loading, the file on the very top of the list gets automatical…

Even worse is when you know the exact file name that you want to open, and the interface fights against you writing it! For example I want to open /tmp/a.png, but there's thousands of files on /tmp and the cursor disappears while "loading" them, and and some characters of the file name are lost, or typed on different parts of the interface.

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#77
post #37

So I just checked on my install (Gnome 3.38.2, Debian testing) and all the GTKFileChooser windows I could find had the thumbnails representing the underlying images. Interestingly I checked a few apps I have installed through Flatpak, and they generally didn't have thumbnails for the same dialogues, although sometimes did for the "recents". Unless this has been recently added as a feature, it sounds more like he has…

Can you provide a screenshot?

If you read the article more closely than I did originally there is an example of what I see in their original article [0]. The thumbnail is part of the list view and they want to see a thumbnail without the other file details.

[0] https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome2.png

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#78
post #11

Omg, this is insane, I now realize I automatically memorize the first 3 and last 3 parts of filenames I need in the picker... For screenshots I read the date very carefully and fear the day I upload a wrong one. I was going to the toilet with a plunger, not even realizing it. Btw, if you work on MacOS (which has been a while for me now), you get very used to hitting space everywhere to get previews. What a feature!

I just don't even use the picker. Most sites support just dragging the image from Nautilus.

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#79

Death by a thousand small inefficiencies, quirks and bugs... It's such a shame, because fixing most of these small bugs is far less work than building new features. Nobody wants to put the work in though... Nobody has the overarching vision of a consistent UX that just works out of the box without oddities, quirks and workarounds.

Part of the reason no one wants to put in the work is because all it takes is a technical dictator to say "I don't like this approach, let's rethink this", and scuttle your weeks of work. Even if you got a sign-off on the approach earlier. This has happened enough times to me in open source projects that I only submit code to projects that I know have reasonable maintainers that I've interacted with in the past.

Developers frequently hate it when "product people" get a say in the direction of the product, but the alternative is commonly to have developers prioritize perceived code purity over actual user interests. And emphasis on "perceived", because usually the codebase is a hot mess but maintainers want it to be their hot mess, not someone else's.

Re: GNOME has no thumbnails in the file picker and my toilets are blocked

#80
post #6

no desktop, no system tray icons.. gnome is a joke

Tools and features have ergonomics and affordances that suggest a certain way of using them, and desktop filling just seems to encourage people to make a massive mess. Even when I was a Windows user, desktop icons were the first thing to go. Not having quick access to a dumping ground meant that I had to go out of my way to make a mess. As for a lack of system tray icons, the practical upshot is that my system bar is…

> As for a lack of system tray icons, the practical upshot is that my system bar isn't littered with multiple special snowflake applications, each with their own unique icon art style and mismatching proportions.

Plasma Desktop's System Tray widget that lets you hide icons you don't want to see. You can disable the widget, or configure it to show no icons at all.

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