RevealAs

Summary

In order to provide rapid access to on-disk file locations, the Human Interface Guidelines for Gnome/KDE could include a "Reveal As-->" menu item on the "File" common to many Gnome/KDE applications. The "Reveal As-->" menu item would have a submenu similar to the "Send-->" submenu found in other applications such as openoffice.org, but instead of attaching the file/document to an email, it would instead open the folder containing the file in the format specified.

Release Note

Users who choose not to use this feature will be unaffected. The feature would enhance the usability of any of the dozens of Linux programs that chose to implement it.

Rationale

Every user has the experience of saving a file inside their favorite program, then multi-clicking their way through the file manager in order to access it. The proposed HIG "Reveal As", to be available File menu of many applications, seeks to eliminate the hassle of remembering where something was just recently saved by automatically opening the folder.

Use Cases

  • John is working on a file in Inkscape and needs to export a PDF copy to be emailed and put onto a pen drive. He selects "File-->Reveal As-->Reveal File as PDF". The "Save As" (or "Export") dialog box opens with the related reveal-containing-folder-after-save option selected and the PDF file format pre-selected. He clicks "Save" and the folder containing the saved file is revealed.

  • Mary has used the same computer for many years and has a very complicated folder hierarchy. Rather than having to remember the deep hierarchy for the text file she just saved in gedit so she can email it, she instead clicks on "File-->Reveal As-->Reveal File" and the folder containing her file is revealed in the default file manager.

Assumptions

Design

User Experience: When the user selects the "File-->Reveal As-->" option, a submenu (similar to the submenu under "Send-->") pops up with the following options:

  • "Reveal File" "Reveal File as PDF" "Reveal File as HTML" "Reveal File as TXT"

When the user selects one of the options, control is passed to a dialog box similar to the "Save As..." or "Export..." dialogs, but is named "Export and Reveal..." The dialog box has pre-selected the appropriate file format and extension, which the user is free to change as needed.

The user then clicks on the button titled "Export and Reveal" (or "Save and Reveal"), control passes then to the default file manager, which opens the containing folder with the saved document file highlighted.

Implementation

This change to the Human Interface guidelines could be a file menu recommendation. The implementation would be easy to achieve after the related reveal-containing-folder-after-save option has been implemented in the standard "Save As" dialog.

UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Migration

Test/Demo Plan

Outstanding Issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec

RevealAs (last edited 2008-08-06 16:37:01 by localhost)