On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 09:24:42PM +0100, Chris G wrote:
Yet another reason to hate the Gnome/GTK file open dialog.
On my system it is now taking more than 30 seconds to open the file opening window. What's it trying to do for all this time and/or how can I fix it?
Presumably it's trying to open something that isn't there or there is a broken nfs/network link of some sort but it's a broken design that hangs for such a long time trying to do something and doesn't tell me what's wrong either.
After a bit of searching around I found what the problem was, an smbmount that had lost what it was mounting. However it wasn't as if it was set up to be visible on the file open dialog, it was just the contents of a sub-directory that had gone AWOL.
I now hate that file dialog even more than I did when it first appeared, not only is it a pain to use, it's semi-broken as well.
On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 09:29:33PM +0100, Chris G wrote:
After a bit of searching around I found what the problem was, an smbmount that had lost what it was mounting. However it wasn't as if it was set up to be visible on the file open dialog, it was just the contents of a sub-directory that had gone AWOL.
I now hate that file dialog even more than I did when it first appeared, not only is it a pain to use, it's semi-broken as well.
Ok, getting tired of your rants about it now, just don't use it maybe? or would that be too simple? Your rant where you'd not done some elementary diagnostics has wasted the time of the 300 people subscribed to this list reading your mail and reply because you ranted first and looked at the reason/cause second, getting tired of this now. I don't care about your 30 seconds, but I do care about my time.
Adam
On 29/03/07, Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
Ok, getting tired of your rants about it now, just don't use it maybe? or would that be too simple? Your rant where you'd not done some elementary diagnostics has wasted the time of the 300 people subscribed to this list reading your mail and reply because you ranted first and looked at the reason/cause second, getting tired of this now. I don't care about your 30 seconds, but I do care about my time.
Ouch! I do agree with you, Adam, but perhaps this is the time to _gently_ remind newer users the netiquette: - always carefully check all possible user mistakes before posting - always do a thorough search of web resources available before posting, e.g. a google search: many have had the same problems already answered - remember to thank people on list for their time in answering questions when you do post, and make your questions and relevant data as concise as possible
When I joined alug a few years back, it was from a very command line angle. The debian install, for example, has become so smooth nowadays that it can be almost windows-like in trying to fathom what is going wrong if you jump straight to desktop environment.
Remember: this is linux: you can see under the hood, read the manuals and have The Power. Being able to run and understand an operating system and its applications is a truly liberating thing. Just remember you can lift that bonnet and the mechanics are there to assist, free of charge, when stuck.
Jenny, reader of "In the beginning was the command line. Neal Stephenson"
On Friday 30 March 2007 00:03, Jenny Hopkins wrote:
Remember: this is linux: you can see under the hood, read the manuals and have The Power. Being able to run and understand an operating system and its applications is a truly liberating thing. Just remember you can lift that bonnet and the mechanics are there to assist, free of charge, when stuck.
And you get the source code, so if/when it breaks, there is always a chance to stick it back together...
BTW Jen - I've done silly things too... `mount /dev/hda2 --bind /tmp/foo && rm -fR /tmp`.. Tits, there goes /
Regards, Paul.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 12:03:35AM +0100, Jenny Hopkins wrote:
On 29/03/07, Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
Ok, getting tired of your rants about it now, just don't use it maybe? or would that be too simple? Your rant where you'd not done some elementary diagnostics has wasted the time of the 300 people subscribed to this list reading your mail and reply because you ranted first and looked at the reason/cause second, getting tired of this now. I don't care about your 30 seconds, but I do care about my time.
Ouch! I do agree with you, Adam, but perhaps this is the time to _gently_ remind newer users the netiquette:
- always carefully check all possible user mistakes before posting
In this case, IMHO, it *wasn't* a 'user' mistake, it's a horrible implementation of a user interface that one can't avoid using sometimes. There is a bug in it because it doesn't cope well with a file system that isn't there some of the time. File systems like this are just about inevitable on any network and a file dialogue that hangs when it hits one is *broken*.
- always do a thorough search of web resources available before
posting, e.g. a google search: many have had the same problems already answered
I did exactly that, and most of what I found was other people complaining about the Gnome/GTK file dialogue. :-) I did find a few hints as to what the problem might be and that was what lead me to the solution.
- remember to thank people on list for their time in answering
questions when you do post, and make your questions and relevant data as concise as possible
I think you'll find I just about always do.
Although my posting was partly to ask for help it was also a (further) comment about the Gnome/GTK file dialogue. This list isn't only a support list, it's a place to talk about Linux and that's exactly what my original message was doing.
Adam is welcome to disagree with me about my comments but they're most definitely on topic!
Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 09:29:33PM +0100, Chris G wrote:
I now hate that file dialog even more than I did when it first appeared, not only is it a pain to use, it's semi-broken as well.
Ok, getting tired of your rants about it now, just don't use it maybe?
[...]
It's actually pretty hard to avoid that disaster zone dialogue: Firefox-based browsers and Gimp being the two hardest things to replace that I can think of. At least browsers don't open file dialogues too often, especially if you can configure your file manager to -remote it and you tell it to always save to a downloads dir.
Or am I missing some tricks to build Iceweasel and Gimp against another toolkit?
Regards,
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 01:02:36AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 09:29:33PM +0100, Chris G wrote:
I now hate that file dialog even more than I did when it first appeared, not only is it a pain to use, it's semi-broken as well.
Ok, getting tired of your rants about it now, just don't use it maybe?
[...]
It's actually pretty hard to avoid that disaster zone dialogue: Firefox-based browsers and Gimp being the two hardest things to replace that I can think of. At least browsers don't open file dialogues too often, especially if you can configure your file manager to -remote it and you tell it to always save to a downloads dir.
Or am I missing some tricks to build Iceweasel and Gimp against another toolkit?
Yes, that really would be useful. I hit that dialogue mostly in Firefox (though less so now that I tend to use wget to do downloads). I hit it last night because I wanted to look at a local .JPG file and since Firefox was open it was the obvious thing to do.
Oh, and I also get a sort of variety of it when using k3b.
Most of the rest of the time everything I do is command line based so I don't see it.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 01:02:36AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
It's actually pretty hard to avoid that disaster zone dialogue: Firefox-based browsers and Gimp being the two hardest things to replace that I can think of. At least browsers don't open file dialogues too often, especially if you can configure your file manager to -remote it and you tell it to always save to a downloads dir.
Or am I missing some tricks to build Iceweasel and Gimp against another toolkit?
For firefox (so I presume Iceweasel too) go to "about:config" configure "ui.allow_platform_file_picker" to be false. Now your file dialogues should not be the dialogue that everyone complains about, it should revert to the XUL dialogue now everyone who keep whining about this "bug" can get on with life, it should be possible to configure your firefox with similar methods to use other file selectors dialogues such as those in KDE. It took me 3 minutes with an internet search engine to find the answer test it and write this mail. As for gimp i'd think it unlikely that you can not build against gtk ;)
I'm getting bored of people asking questions or complaining about software "problems" when the "problem" isn't the software at all, just that it is their inability to use the internet to research problems and get the answer themselves. That was the basis of my original rant.
Thanks Adam
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 10:47:53AM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 01:02:36AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
It's actually pretty hard to avoid that disaster zone dialogue: Firefox-based browsers and Gimp being the two hardest things to replace that I can think of. At least browsers don't open file dialogues too often, especially if you can configure your file manager to -remote it and you tell it to always save to a downloads dir.
Or am I missing some tricks to build Iceweasel and Gimp against another toolkit?
For firefox (so I presume Iceweasel too) go to "about:config" configure "ui.allow_platform_file_picker" to be false. Now your file dialogues should not be the dialogue that everyone complains about, it should revert to the XUL dialogue now everyone who keep whining about this "bug" can get on with life, it should be possible to configure your firefox with similar methods to use other file selectors dialogues such as those in KDE.
Excellent, thank you!
It took me 3 minutes with an internet search engine tofind the answer test it and write this mail.
You probably had a good idea what you were looking for though, if I had realised there was an about:config option to set the file picker dialogue I could probably have found it.
As for gimp i'd think it
unlikely that you can not build against gtk ;)
There are too many logical steps in that sentence for my poor little mind.
I'm getting bored of people asking questions or complaining about software "problems" when the "problem" isn't the software at all, just that it is their inability to use the internet to research problems and get the answer themselves. That was the basis of my original rant.
Er, um, this mailing list *is* the internet (well, part of it) and it's *one* of the ways that I use to ask and answer questions. However as I said before I think it's also a perfectly reasonable place to voice one's opinions, it's a place to chat as well as just for questions.
Whatever, thank you very much for the solution. :-)
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 11:17:42AM +0100, Chris G wrote:
It took me 3 minutes with an internet search engine tofind the answer test it and write this mail.
You probably had a good idea what you were looking for though, if I had realised there was an about:config option to set the file picker dialogue I could probably have found it.
I had not idea what I was looking for tbh other than a way to see if you can change the default file dialogues with firefox. Given the number of platforms firefox runs on that don't have Gnome/GTK I can't believe that it would have been the only option available.
Thanks Adam
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 11:43:14AM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 11:17:42AM +0100, Chris G wrote:
It took me 3 minutes with an internet search engine tofind the answer test it and write this mail.
You probably had a good idea what you were looking for though, if I had realised there was an about:config option to set the file picker dialogue I could probably have found it.
I had not idea what I was looking for tbh other than a way to see if you can change the default file dialogues with firefox. Given the number of platforms firefox runs on that don't have Gnome/GTK I can't believe that it would have been the only option available.
I think you'll find that Firefox requires Gnome/GTK libraries on most platforms. I have it installed on Solaris at work and it explicitly says it requires GTK 1.2 libraries.
On Firefox 1.5 on Solaris it defaults to the XUL file picker. There isn't an option to change it on 1.5.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 12:01:39PM +0100, Chris G wrote:
I think you'll find that Firefox requires Gnome/GTK libraries on most platforms. I have it installed on Solaris at work and it explicitly says it requires GTK 1.2 libraries.
On Firefox 1.5 on Solaris it defaults to the XUL file picker. There isn't an option to change it on 1.5.
But the file selector that you dislike (aiui, i might be wrong as i've not researched this) is a Gnome 2 file selector written in GTK, Gnome doesn't exist for Windows or Mac OS X (actually, i think it might be in development for OS X) so that dialogue wouldn't exist on those platforms (I also think that ports of firefox have been made to OS/2 and some of the other weird and wonderful OS out there), hence why I looked for the configurable option for changing the selector.
Adam
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 12:33:42PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 12:01:39PM +0100, Chris G wrote:
I think you'll find that Firefox requires Gnome/GTK libraries on most platforms. I have it installed on Solaris at work and it explicitly says it requires GTK 1.2 libraries.
On Firefox 1.5 on Solaris it defaults to the XUL file picker. There isn't an option to change it on 1.5.
But the file selector that you dislike (aiui, i might be wrong as i've not researched this) is a Gnome 2 file selector written in GTK, Gnome doesn't exist for Windows or Mac OS X (actually, i think it might be in development for OS X) so that dialogue wouldn't exist on those platforms (I also think that ports of firefox have been made to OS/2 and some of the other weird and wonderful OS out there), hence why I looked for the configurable option for changing the selector.
Yes, I guess Firefox on Windows and Mac probably uses the 'local default' file selector.
The *only* other platform for which builds seem to be readily available is Solaris, I can't see any others at all at mozilla.com.
It would appear that the ui.allow_platform_file_picker config is only available in certain circumstances, it's on 1.5.x.x versions of Firefox on the Linux systems I've checked but it's not on the Solaris 1.5.x.x version of Firefox I have. I don't really understand why that is as Firefox requires the GTK libraries to run on Solaris.
I haven't got a Windows box with Firefox on it to play with.
Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
For firefox (so I presume Iceweasel too) go to "about:config" configure "ui.allow_platform_file_picker" to be false. [...]
Must be in later versions. I'm pretty sure I'll remember to look after I next upgrade. Thanks.
I'm getting bored of people asking questions or complaining about software "problems" when the "problem" isn't the software at all, just that it is their inability to use the internet to research problems and get the answer themselves. That was the basis of my original rant.
Some may be unable to use the internet to research problems because they're clueless, but it may be partly because the internet is gradually getting stupider.
The above fix may have been found through a search engine, but no link has been posted and probably the search results will have changed overnight. Web site owners try to "win" the latest search engine rankings, because most users stop on page three of a search [BBC]. This wouldn't be so bad if the search results were halfway stable and not open to so much manipulation.
But it is bad, because you can't rely on a search engine's results from one minute to the next. The ranking algorithm is manipulated by Search Engine Optimisers (SEOs) as a paid service, and by the engine admins as a punishment of sites they don't like.
This frequent fiddling - and its dramatic effects - encourages the bad SEO sellers /spammers /scammers by letting them show the occasional "quick win" in the rankings, which helps them convince more unsuspecting victims to buy their pollution services. Google's probably not too unhappy with that, because most SEOs (good and bad) also buy Google ads for their services and clients: giving SEOs results for their adverts feeds the spiral and helps Google's profits soar.
The obvious ways to stamp out this pollution are:
1. to start using bookmarks again, either directly or through shared-bookmark services - as well as reducing google's influence, this has the added benefit of helping reduce the typo-domain-squatters, and maybe help reduce "phishing" attacks (if you only access your subscribed sites through your bookmarks, you're less likely to end up on a fake); 2. to help rebuild the directory services like vlib and dmoz - these sites are compiled by reviewers and sometimes give better results, but they always seem to need more help to keep up with the huge search index robots; and 3. to use non-google search engines as a last resort.
We've got to stop searching and start navigating again, before we all drown in crap.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 12:54:22PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
- to help rebuild the directory services like vlib and dmoz -
these sites are compiled by reviewers and sometimes give better results, but they always seem to need more help to keep up with the huge search index robots; and
The dmoz directory is still alive and (fairly) well, it seems to be redistributed by a number of other search engines etc. In particular it is what Google uses as its 'Google Directory'.
I find that Dmoz/Google Directory is often the best way to go when looking for stuff like regional information when going on holiday etc. It's *much* better when looking for hotels for example, searching for 'hotel venice' on Google is completely pointless but drilling down Google Directory to Venice often comes up with some useful information.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 12:54:22PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
For firefox (so I presume Iceweasel too) go to "about:config" configure "ui.allow_platform_file_picker" to be false. [...]
Must be in later versions. I'm pretty sure I'll remember to look after I next upgrade. Thanks.
If it isn't there you might need to add it, you could use one of these mythical search engines to read more ;)
Adam
On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 11:18:22PM +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 09:29:33PM +0100, Chris G wrote:
After a bit of searching around I found what the problem was, an smbmount that had lost what it was mounting. However it wasn't as if it was set up to be visible on the file open dialog, it was just the contents of a sub-directory that had gone AWOL.
I now hate that file dialog even more than I did when it first appeared, not only is it a pain to use, it's semi-broken as well.
Ok, getting tired of your rants about it now, just don't use it maybe? or would that be too simple? Your rant where you'd not done some elementary diagnostics has wasted the time of the 300 people subscribed to this list reading your mail and reply because you ranted first and looked at the reason/cause second, getting tired of this now. I don't care about your 30 seconds, but I do care about my time.
I'm sorry if I offended you that much!
The problem with the GTK/Gnome file dialogue is that one can't avoid it, there's no workaround.
I did originally think I had a problem and was asking for a solution, I happened to find the cause quite quickly and thought it was worth relaying that to the list, someone else might hit the same problem.
On Friday 30 March 2007 09:44, Chris G wrote:
The problem with the GTK/Gnome file dialogue is that one can't avoid it, there's no workaround.
KDE. ;-)
Richard.
On Fri, Mar 30, 2007 at 10:21:40AM +0100, Richard Lewis wrote:
On Friday 30 March 2007 09:44, Chris G wrote:
The problem with the GTK/Gnome file dialogue is that one can't avoid it, there's no workaround.
KDE. ;-)
... but that *isn't* a workaround at all, the file dialogue comes with the application and if you use Firefox or the Gimp or many other applications you get the rotten thing even if you're using KDE.
I use neither KDE nor Gnome, I'm trying to *avoid* the "Windows Way".
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Adam Bower -
Chris G -
Jenny Hopkins -
MJ Ray -
Paul -
Richard Lewis -
Rob Page