BrowseForFolder sucks

[Annette Phillips]

I have been using np++ for decades and I actually love it but one thing that drives me up the wall is the use of the BrowseForFolder dialog, which I use all the time (mainly via the “Find In Files” dialog). I’ve been using HexEdit for about the same time (since 1999) and it has always had a “directory selection” dialog based on the file open dialog.

[Alan Kilborn]

@Annette-Phillips

Hmmm, that image shows files, not just folders.
I’m not sure that would be what is desired for a large quantity of users.

You might want to add your thoughts to this already-open “issue” that seems to have the same complaint: https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/8513

That way a developer has a chance to see your thoughts.

[pbarney]

I think this is the image you had in mind:

I too, find it frustrating because it requires a mouse to easily navigate, and also requires that you know the directory tree of your computer very well.

[PeterJones]

@Annette-Phillips said,

one thing that drives me up the wall is the use of the BrowseForFolder

@pbarney said,

I too, find it frustrating

I wonder if either of you realized that the dialog in question is a Microsoft Windows defined dialog, and that Notepad++ just calls it. As far as I remember (I’m not a win32 API expert, though I’ve done some stuff with it), the way that Microsoft wrote the Open or Save As dialogs, they can only return an actual file’s path to the calling application, not a directory/folder; if an application wants to ask a user for a folder name, the BrowseForFolder dialog is the standard, official, usual way of getting it. If you don’t like the design of that Dialog, Microsoft is the only one who can change it.

The alternative is for Notepad++ to write its own dialog, which it then has to independently maintain and bugfix and find all the edge cases for. That’s a lot of extra work, compared to the Microsoft-standard dialog which is freely available to the Win32 API.

That said, if either of you wanted to ask the Notepad++ developers to implement their own dialog rather than relying on the Microsoft dialog, this Forum is not the right place to make a feature request… and, in fact, @Alan-Kilborn already pointed you to the existing issue #8513, where that request was made (and phrased in a much friendlier manner than “this sucks”). It hasn’t been accepted or implemented yet, but it’s also not yet been rejected.

For example, if you think that the HexEdit plugin has a dialog that would work better for the purpose, you might want to point out which “HexEdit” plugin, and what option brings up the dialog. I looked at HEX-Editor v0.9.8 (chcg’s fixes and re-distribution of the original Jens Lorenz, available from the Plugins Admin in v7.9.1-64b), but I could not find in that plugin any directory-finding dialog; but I’m not an expert at that plugin, so maybe I don’t know the circumstances in which it pops up that dialog. If you know which dialog and how to access it, putting that information here and in issue #8513 would be much more helpful to the discussion at hand than “this sucks”.

[Alan Kilborn]

@PeterJones said:

…existing issue #8513, where that request was made (and phrased in a much friendlier manner than “this sucks”…

Actually, if you really read a certain part of that issue, the tone there is quite hostile as well:

(why) you decided to use the ghetto file picker instead of the full one with an address bar and shortcuts

“ghetto file picker”…LOL

From my limited research, Microsoft offers a “better” directory picker, but for some reason the code for it is not straightforward?

But, as I said in another recent thread, in practice I never use the ... button in the Find in Files window; the Follow current doc. feature is so “wonderful” one never really needs to browse folders with this “sucky” feature. :-)

Always, though, different users, different mileage.

[PeterJones]

@Alan-Kilborn ,

You’re right.

Also, I just realized which category this topic was in, and realized I shouldn’t have let myself be dragged into this. :-)

[Alan Kilborn]

@PeterJones said in BrowseForFolder sucks:

I just realized which category this topic was in, and realized I shouldn’t have let myself be dragged into this

Ha. Same here!
I rarely look at the “category” of posts.
I just read the “unread” ones.

[pbarney]

@PeterJones Fair point. Thanks for taking time to explain that. It’s a minor nuisance and I’d prefer the developers spent their time on more pressing needs.