Flash file chooser filters are case-sensitive

[Kazade]

Binary package hint: flashplugin-nonfree

I wasn't sure where to report this, but it's such a massive problem (e.g. dead-end situation) when a non-technical user hits it that I thought I'd report it here as well as upstream on the Adobe bug tracker*. It may also be fixable at both ends (e.g. Adobe and Gtk)

Steps to reproduce:
1. Visit and login to Kodak's image upload service ( http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/welcome.jsp )
2. Attempt to upload images (filters on *.jpg;*jpeg)
3. Browse to a folder with files with an uppercase JPG extension

 Actual Results:
 Files will not be visible in the file chooser

 Expected Results:
 Files should be visible in the file chooser

This a big problem, because if the user can't browse to the files they want they need to rename them all to lower case - I had to resort to bash to do that.

I've done a little bit of digging and this is what I've discovered:

1. Flash calls the GtkFileChooser dialog
2. ActionScript uses a list of file extensions (rather than mimetypes) in FileReferenceList.browse() which is the method that opens the file chooser
3. GtkFileChooser doesn't seem to have a way to say "make extensions case-insensitive" (aside from mimetypes)

So, it could well be that Flash didn't implement case insensitive filters because they was no way to tell Gtk to do it. It also raises the question, why would anyone want the GtkFileChooser filters to be case-SENSITIVE?

I can see a few possible fixes, at different places:

1. The website specifies *.jpg and *.JPG
2. Flash tells Gtk to look at both upper and lower case versions
3. a) Gtk makes filters case-insensitive or b) provides a means to make it so if it doesn't exist already

1 and 2 aren't really complete solutions, 3a is a solution that the community can do, but there may be a reason for the current behaviour, 3b would require Adobe to fix it and possibly Gtk as well if the feature doesn't exist.

* http://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-5570

[Chris Wilson (notgary-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks a lot for reporting this bug, but this is not a valid papercut as the Adobe Flash plugin is not included in the detault Ubuntu installation.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.