[Bug 62132] Please retain state of Open > All Files / All Text Files

[Jason Gerard DeRose]

Public bug reported:

Okay, maybe I'm one of very few who actually uses gedit for coding, but
here's my workflow problem:

1) I need to open another source file, so I Open...

2) gedit nicely displays the contents of the last directory I've open
anything from, which often contains several dozen source files.

3) But only on very rare occasions am I interested in a ".py~" file, and
I've never felt the need to open a ".pyc" file, so I select "All Text
Files" instead of "All Files" so I can more quickly find the ".py" file
I'm looking for.

4) 53 seconds later, I feel the need to open some other ".py" file, but
to my constant annoyance, gedit has reverted to "All Files", so I must
select "All Text Files" again.

5) Repeat.

I'm not much of a C hacker and am swamped with another project at the
moment, so I wont be able fix this myself anytime soon.  That being
said, I know beggars can't be choosers, but here is my plea for how this
should be implemented:

At the very least the All Files / Text Files state should persist during
a given session, but please don't bother doing it this way if you do
anything at all: save it permanently with gconf key.  Persistence of
state always makes an application easier to learn and quicker to use.

I also think that "All Text Files" should be the default.  As gedit (or
gtk or nautilus or whatever) obviously does something more intelligent
than just check file extensions, I think that very seldom would gedit
hide something that the user wished to open (for example, you can still
open '/etc/network/interfaces' in the "Text Files" mode).  Remember,
novice users don't tend to be "power" users of text editors anyway.

I'm not sure if this can be changed easily or is instead set in the gtk
file chooser whatever widget, but please replace the ComboBox with two
RadioButtons.  It's silly to use a drop-down when there are only two
options.  It's better always to show the user the selected state and the
alternate state.

Lastly, I think this phrasing is clearer (for the English anyway): "Text
Files Only" and "All Files".  Again, please make "Text Files Only" the
default.

Thanks!  Or maybe I'll have time to do it myself in the not so distant
future.  ;)

** Affects: gedit (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Untriaged
         Status: Unconfirmed

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Please retain state of Open > All Files / All Text Files
https://launchpad.net/bugs/62132