Export dialog/window's filename widget is unpleasant to use

[Jeff Fortin Tam]

The following has bothered me for years in the export dialog:
- The file path inside the "filename" text entry is visual noise (9 times out of 10)
- The text entry is not wide enough to accomodate both the path and filename. Most of the times, you get "/home/foobar/projects/blah/the-actual-filen...". So if you want to only change the filename (9 times out of 10), you have to click, then "scroll" to the right (or use the End key, if you're a geek), and then change the filename (and hope it's not too long so that it fits without scrolling)
- Typing the path, without the autocompletion that is offered by a real filechooser, is a PITA
- The Browse button has the wrong icon
- You can't drag and drop a file onto that widget to indicate what you'd like to overwrite as (you can, with standard widgets)
- The dialog doesn't remember its size (so it's no use trying to work around the shortness of the text entry)

Possible solutions/alternatives:
- Get rid of the text entry, only put a real File picker (Browse) button to pick both the path and filename using the gtk filechooser
- Redesign the whole thing around a built-in filechooser widget
- Use a standard folder chooser combobox widget, and below it put a text entry for the filename only
- Strip the cwd and replace it with "./", but that's too geek.

I'm willing to design mockups if you'd like one of the solutions above.

[Kẏra (thekyriarchy)]

Confirming this

[su_v (suv-lp)]

> - Get rid of the text entry, only put a real File picker (Browse)
> button to pick both the path and filename using the
> gtk filechooser

The current separation allows to optionally enter a relative path name or file name only, this would no longer be possible with your proposal.

> - Strip the cwd and replace it with "./", but that's too geek.

IMHO it's not about being geek or not, the result is not the same whether a relative (or no path) or an absolute (default, path of current doc) is entered into the filename entry field. It matters e.g. when using the batch export feature, after for example having moved the SVG file to a different location on disk.

Mockups would certainly be useful for discussion. There was a GSoC project this summer to refactor the file export dialog, but unfortunately it wasn't finished (one of the threads discussing the proposal in inkscape.devel: <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.graphics.inkscape.devel/33900>).

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Some related feature requests in the bug tracker:
Bug #168976 “Exporting bitmap, confusing Save button in Browse dialog”
Bug #411568 “Batch export should be more explicit about where it exports stuff”
Bug #618668 “"Export Bitmap" dialog, unintuitive and possibly mislabeled.”

[John Smith (john-smithi)]

r11637 - Small improvement, the path/filename should now always scroll to the end so you can see the filename for easier editing.