Use native Explorer file chooser dialog on Windows
Operating System: Windows 10
Description of the feature
I would like GIMP to use the Windows native (Explorer) file chooser dialog box for actions like “Open”, “Save As”, and “Export As”. GIMP’s dialog box instead uses Gnome icons, Gnome Places, Gnome bookmarks, Gnome layout, etc.
The attached screenshot shows the Gimp “Save As” dialog (top left) with three others. Clockwise from top right: Notepad++, Firefox, and RStudio (which does not look quite right because it has a high-DPI scaling problem). I get confused by the differences in design language and even what options are available in the file tree.
When faced with a Gnome-based save dialog, Windows users must
- learn and remember a second interface when one is already familiar
- set up a new set of directory bookmarks even when the user has already set up Windows Explorer with (the Windows equivalents of) bookmarks appropriate to their workflow
- learn new hotkeys
- identify directories and places by unfamiliar icons that cannot be customized and often do not include as much useful information as the Windows versions (because they are not designed for Windows)
- forgo familiar sort/group/filter options when viewing files
- accept a much smaller set of sort/group/filter options because the GIMP dialog does not (for example) support Windows file tags and because Windows does not support whatever the equivalent is in Gnome (for example, I have tags on many directories and typically group files/directories by tag in File Explorer, but I cannot use that grouping option in the GIMP dialog)
Use cases
- Windows has a “Quick Access” system and a “Libraries” system built in to its File Explorer, while Gnome (Nautilus?) has “bookmarks“. Any windows user who has useful directory shortcuts in Quick Access or a library will not be able to use those when saving a file from GIMP.
- Some users rely on cues from directory or file icons to navigate quickly, but GIMP does not show the icons set globally by Windows, so users cannot rely on those cues when saving from GIMP.
- Some users use sorting, grouping, and filtering options in to manage files in Windows File Explorer, and those options are not available in the GIMP dialog.
System
Windows 10 Home version 20H2 build 19042.928
GIMP version 2.10.24 (revision 2)
Related issues
Edited by rcragun