There is no warning message when inserting a forbidden symbol (/) in filename

Bug #393158 reported by Alessandro Tocci
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
GTK+
Fix Released
Low
One Hundred Papercuts
In Progress
Low
Timothy Arceri
gtk+2.0 (Ubuntu)
Triaged
Low
Ubuntu Desktop Bugs

Bug Description

When the user tries to save a file from the "Save" option and Inputs labels containing "/" nothing happens, the "Save" dialog remains opened and he is not warned with an error message.

An average user cannot understand this, since the user is not informed of what mistake he has done!

Papercut solution:
 An appropriate dialogue is needed:

"File names cannot contain "/" "
"If you intend to save the file in a folder "xx", First Create folder "xx" in the location"

------------- [Old description] -------------
When the user types a filename, if he puts a forbidden symbol (like "/" for example) in the name, when clicking on the "Save" button there's a really obscure message coming out: instead of saying "one or more character you have typed are not admitted" , or "the symbol "/" is not admitted in a file name", it says (approximately, I'm translating from the italian version) "THE FOLDER'S CONTENT CANNOT BE VISUALIZED: error in executing stat of file /home/john/Desktop/xxxxxx : no file or directory".
--------------------------

I tried with Openoffice.org, Gedit, Archive manager, Brasero, Sound recorder and Gimp, and they all have the same behaviour. The only one to give the correct response has been Nautilus which told me that "/" is not allowed. I made the tests on a virtual machine running Karmic Alpha 2 updated to 07/05/09.

I think this is very confusing for the newcomer: if it's easily fixable, it should be fixed in Karmic.

Revision history for this message
Ilya Barygin (randomaction) wrote :

I assume you're describing the behaviour of the Save dialog.

I think this is not a bug: when you type in "foo/bar", it's interpreted as file "bar" in subdirectory "foo". If subdirectory /home/john/Desktop/foo (or whatever) doesn't exist, you're informed about it. This is useful when instead of navigating to the folder where you want to save, you just type the path to the desired file.

Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

 * Is this reproducible?
 * If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

 This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

Changed in gtk+2.0 (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Ubuntu Desktop Bugs (desktop-bugs)
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

Yes, I'm actually talking about that dialog;
your explanation is correct, and I'm aware that the behaviour I describe has a reason to be. However, my opinion is that the message that shows when the typed path is incorrect is not useful for those who don't already know the mechanism: that would consequently compromise usability.
I think it would be useful to replace the present message with something like "The path you have typed is not correct: please check the directory tree" , or "The "/" symbol can be only used to head to a subdirectory, not in a filename: if you wanted to set a subdirectory for your file, please check the directory tree".

What do you think??

Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

@ Sebastien Bacher: it is very easily reproducible (it's rather a usability imperfection than a software bug).
You just need to create a new file (as I said above, I've tried this with Openoffice.org, Gedit, Archive manager, Brasero, Sound recorder and Gimp and they all had the same behaviour) and then give it a name containing a (/). It will appear a dialog saying
THE FOLDER CONTENTS COULD NOT BE DISPLAYED:
Error stating file 'home/ale/xxxxx' : no such file or directory

I think that such a message is misleading, as I said above (I have to admit that I myself didn't understand is meaning until Ilya B came). It should be easy to find a more user-friendly sentence!

Thank you for your great job with Ubuntu

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

Unable to reproduce this behavior in Karmic default install.

Now there is *no feedback* when "/" is entered in the filename , it just doesnt save without giving any warning to the user. and the save dialogue just remains!
But this behavior is IMO even worse.

As the OP says, the dialogue can ask "X folder doent not exist. Do you want to create it?"

Changed in hundredpapercuts:
status: New → Confirmed
description: updated
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@ale-sandro : This behavior *has been changed in Karmic* , Now there is no feedback.

Kindly test it in Karmic , *not* Jaunty.

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@ale-sandro : A paper cut is a minor usability annoyance that an average user would encounter on his/her first day of using a new installation of Ubuntu 9.10. So kindly test it in Karmic

For further info about papercuts criteria , pls read > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut

Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

@mac_v: I know that this really a *minor* bug; anyway, it is quite easy to encounter and even easier to "fix", I suppose. That's why I posted it here: I apologise for the wrong approach, I'm downloading Karmic now to repeat the test.

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@ale-sandro : *Papercuts aims to fix such minor usability bugs* :)
so there is no wrong approach for this :)
This is actually a papercut.
Do report back.
If you also dont get feedbacks for '/' filenames , and update the description , saying that the user is *not warned* when entering such names.

Which is a worse behavior since the user will not even be aware that he has entered a wrong label !
He'll just wonder something is not working with the app.

description: updated
Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

@mac_v: I repeated the tests on Karmic and the feedback it gave is the same it was on Jaunty.
I'm trying to figure out why you didn't have any warning message but my karmic installation broke, so I can't do anything until I have some time to fix it... more feedback to come, bye :-)

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@ale-sandro:
Something weird with my Karmic install[from alpha 1], It does not give feedback for both "Save" & "Save as"

But i tested in a fresh Karmic alpha2 install and i get the error you are describing!

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@ale-sandro:
Something weird with my Karmic install[from alpha 1], It does not give feedback for both "Save" & "Save as"

But i tested in a fresh Karmic alpha2 install and i get the error you are describing!
I guess my setup is messed up.

But i get the error only for "Save", While "Save as" , gives no feedback.

I'v attached the screenshot of the error.

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@ale-sandro: If you dont mind , i updated the description with the English version of the error.

description: updated
Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

@Mac_v: sure I don't mind, it is better explained now!
And, the message in the screenshot is the same I got on my PC; and I was running Karmic Alpha2 so maybe that was the point. As soon as I'll have the system running I'm going to test the difference between "Save" and "Save as".

Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

@Mac_v: things are getting more confusing somehow... I reinstalled Karmic (Alpha 2) and I updated it just today, and now it behaves like you said in your fist post. I get *no feedback at all*.
I'm updating the description.

summary: - Incoherent warning message when inserting a forbidden symbol in filename
+ There is no warning message when inserting a forbidden symbol (/) in
+ filename
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

the karmic version also gives no error there, and / is used for directories under linux, how do you expect the selector to differenciate a directory and you wanting to use the char in some naming?

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

@Sebastien Bacher:
Just a warning can be prompted when the folder doesnt exist. Or that filenames should have "/"

When the average user doesnt get a feedback , they tend to get confused. Most dont know that using "/" would mean directories.

Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

^should not have "/"

Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

@Sebastien Bacher:
As Mac_v already said, the problem is that not everybody knows that / marks a subdirectory. Actually, an average user isn't even supposed to know that he is allowed to type the entire filepath in a box called "Name" . I myself wasn't aware of it for a long time, so I think that an informative warning about what you can and what you cannot put in there would be precious.

Revision history for this message
Pedro Villavicencio (pedro) wrote :

Thanks for your report, that's something to send directly upstream at http://bugzilla.gnome.org by someone interested on the feature, for forwarding instructions please read http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME, Thanks in advance.

Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

@Pedro Villavicencio: I was about to enter the bug in bugzilla, but I was puzzled by the choice of the piece of software under which the bug has to be filed, that seems to be mandatory. May you tell me where should I put it?? Thank you! :-)

Revision history for this message
Pedro Villavicencio (pedro) wrote :

ale-sandro gtk+ is the product upstream, thanks again.

Revision history for this message
Alessandro Tocci (alessandro-tocci) wrote :

I filed the bug in bugzilla.gnome.org: it's here https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=593410

Changed in gtk+2.0 (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Triaged
Changed in gtk:
status: Unknown → New
Changed in gtk:
importance: Unknown → Low
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
importance: Undecided → Low
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
assignee: nobody → Papercuts Ninja (papercuts-ninja)
milestone: none → precise-9-miscellaneous
Changed in gtk:
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
milestone: precise-9-miscellaneous → quantal-10-gtk
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
milestone: quantal-10-gtk → raring-gtk
Revision history for this message
RaduStoica (radumstoica) wrote :

I'm not sure this is still an issue.

A "/" in the name of the file is interpreted as trying to save in a subfolder of the current location. If I try to do this now in GEdit, I get an error message saying the subfolder can't be shown because it does not exist.

Changed in hundredpapercuts:
assignee: Paper Cuts Ninja (papercuts-ninja) → Timothy Arceri (t-fridey)
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
status: Triaged → In Progress
Changed in hundredpapercuts:
milestone: raring-gtk → papercuts-s-gtk
Changed in gtk:
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
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