Re: VDQ : Delete a whole file from within AbiWord?

On Fri, 1 Jul 2005, Bear Tooth wrote:

> Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 15:13:04 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Bear Tooth <Beartooth@adelphia.net>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@maths.tcd.ie>
> Cc: abiword-user <abiword-user@abisource.com>
> Subject: Re: VDQ : Delete a whole file from within AbiWord?
>
>
> On Fri, 1 Jul 2005, Alan Horkan wrote:
>
> > First off I must make it clear this issue has nothing to do with
> > abiword.
>
> Not to the knowing, maybe; it certainly did in my user's
> mind, causing frustration and dismay, followed by complete loss of a
> productive train of thought about what she had AbiWord open *for* --
> and then in mine, where it did the same.

Not our fault but I know it is still our problem.

> > The new file chooser does not provide any way to delete files.
> > It really wasn't something we expected anyone to be doing very
> > often.
>
> That amazes me.

Both Open Source and Proprietary Software suffer when confronted by
deadlines. Also the file chooser is a decpetively simple problem and
everyone had an opinion on it (this is called the Bicycle Shed Effect)
and the many conflicting ideas made it difficult to get anything done.
The really important part was the new underlying infrastructure was
complete and new file chooser was needed to get people to switch. There
are so many other problems to solve and reinventing a wheel that has
already consumed a disproportionate amount of resources is about the
last thing most developers are interested in doing.

The old file chooser had flaws and the new file chooser has
entirely different flaws. The important thing though is the
infrastructure which allows others to write their own file choosers and
plug them in place of the current default.

Although many people complain about the file chooser - myself included -
there are suprisingly few alternatives (next to none, I'll spare you the
minute details).

> troublesome, even with something less irritating than Nautilus --
> and would be to a serious writer even given familiarity with
> Nautilus.

Alternatives such as the Rox filer may be more to your liking.

> > Frankly yes, and I bet you use the command line often enough to
> > recognise that Nautilus makes many tasks more complicated than
> > alternate ways of doing things.
>
> Agreed, in thunder: far more complicated, and slower -- both
> needlessly. I don't know of another linux app I like less.

(For what is worth that comment was directed at Hubert. If Nautilus
were really easy we would all be using the command line less often.)

> > I guess it wouldn't kill the GTK developers to have the Delete key
> > actually do something in the file chooser dialog, and perhaps
> > include delete in the context menu.
>
> Filing a bug report is not within my competence, alas!, nor

There is no nice way of saying it but you must learn. Filing a bug report
using the Gnome Bugzilla tracking system should not be significantly more
difficult to learn than it was for you to learn how to use email the first
time and it is pretty hard not to know how to use Web based forms.

Please at least try and learn. Please make a short bug report against
GTK+ and ask them to make it so that you can delete a file from within the
file chooser, and provide a short summary of the problem you are trying to
solve and why you think this change is needed. (And remember you catch
more flies with Honey than with Vinegar so even if you are annoyed be sure
not to take it out on developers who are trying to do their best with
limited resources.)

http://bugzilla.gnome.org

There is only so much we can do to help you if you aren't willing to make
an effort to help yourself.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

To developers:
I forgot we had a menu item for "Report a Bug", although in this case the
bug should be filed against GTK. I'd better request a GTK
stock item for it as quite a few projects have started doing it, although
I'd be a lot happier if it weren't included in the stable release builds.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/
Open Clip Art http://OpenClipArt.org

P.S. No need to CC me I'm on the list.
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Received on Sat Jul 2 02:23:36 2005