[mostly solved] The hated GTK+ filechooser

ConnorBehan · 2009-12-25 22:51:34

Do you all know the pesky autocompletion in the GTK+ filechooser "Ctrl+L" location bar? Trying to type "/var/abs/local" results in "/var/ar/abs/bs/local/ocal" because each directory is the only directory in its parent directory to start with that letter. If I could memorize my entire filesystem then I would know to stop typing and wait for the autocompletion but pausing during every path is simply unrealistic. Anyway this guy has the exact same problem as me: http://forum.soft32.com/linux2/change-g … 50633.html

I decided that one of the things I have time to do this Christmas is revert the autocompletion to the old behaviour of not completing something for you until you press tab or enter. I could have sworn it used to be like this but I can't find out what version had this feature. I tried gtk2-2.12.11 but this had the pesky autocompletion (and caused most of my apps to segfault). The first version of GTK+ I ever used was gtk2-2.10.14 but I downloaded the source code for it and the relevant file (gtkfilechooserentry.c) had lines about mandatorily completing common prefixes just like the current version. Plus the forum link I posted above is from 2005.

So has the autocompletion always worked this way in GTK+2? I asked a dev on IRC and he said it was applied sometime between 2.12 and 2.18. Either some factor on my system is preserving the filechooser behaviour even when I downgrade gtk2 or I have a very bad memory for how it used to be.

So my question is: does anyone have or remember a gtk2 version that does not autocomplete this way? A quick google search turns up hundreds of complaints about the filechooser so I wonder if someone has already written a drop-in replacement for gtk's filechooser with this feature among others. I would love to work on reverting this feature if someone can help me find the source file that I should be trying to revert it to.

Last edited by ConnorBehan (2010-01-13 21:32:04)

PirateJonno · 2009-12-26 04:40:51

personally I don't have any of the problems you described. in any case, here is the source file:
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gtk+/tree/g … serentry.c

ConnorBehan · 2009-12-26 14:33:37

Thanks but I may have worded that awkwardly. I'm not trying to find the source file that controls autocompletion... I know it's gtkfilechooserentry.c. I'm trying to find the *specific version of that source file* that has completion working the way I want it to. I think an old version of GTK+ allowed me to trigger tab completion myself but I don't know what version that is.

Is there a way I can compile an old version of GTK+ and use its filechooser without installing it? Like running makepkg in /var/abs/extra/gtk2 and then cd'ing into src and running some test binary in there?

majiq · 2009-12-26 23:56:00

Edit: nvm.

Last edited by majiq (2009-12-26 23:56:30)

ConnorBehan · 2009-12-27 03:24:39

Ok I managed to get the completion waiting for the user again. It was a quick and dirty hack... maybe if I knew what GTK+ source version to look at, I could make it better. I'll work on this a bit more and probably put it in the AUR tomorrow. Does anyone have any filechooser patches they'd like me to add? There must be other people who mess around with the filechooser to make it more tolerable.

ConnorBehan · 2010-01-13 21:31:42

Ok I was about as wrong as it's possible to be. The bug only occurs when a clipboard manager is running and is detailed on the gnome bugzilla: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=333320.

For clipman users, the xfce4-clipman-plugin-passive package I put in the AUR damn near fixes it. If anyone else is driven nuts by this, see if you can do something similar to patch other clipboard managers.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-25 22:51:34

[mostly solved] The hated GTK+ filechooser

#2 2009-12-26 04:40:51

Re: [mostly solved] The hated GTK+ filechooser

#3 2009-12-26 14:33:37

Re: [mostly solved] The hated GTK+ filechooser

#4 2009-12-26 23:56:00

Re: [mostly solved] The hated GTK+ filechooser

#5 2009-12-27 03:24:39

Re: [mostly solved] The hated GTK+ filechooser

#6 2010-01-13 21:31:42

Re: [mostly solved] The hated GTK+ filechooser

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