Comment 10 for bug 387957

Thanks for your note David. I'm not suggesting to change the behaviour of the Find As You Type feature that allows quickly jumping through directory structures by typing folders' initial letters. Personally I use this all the time and think it's great.

The main issue here, especially for non-advanced users, is Scenario 1 (above), where the find as you type feature is not used (ie the user double-clicks on folders to define the save location). In this case, the focus is not returned to the Name field after double-clicking on folders. This means that after finding the desired location, the user has to move the mouse back to the Name field, highlight the existing name (usually something like "Untitled 1"), then type a name in and press Save.

In Windows, the focus is returned to the Name field after double clicking on a folder. But Find as you type is also available on Windows for advanced users - by single-clicking in the folder area (either on a folder or in an empty space), focus is switched to the folder area and find as you type can be used - focus only jumps back to the Name field if the mouse is used to double click a folder. If enter is pressed to enter a sub-folder, focus remains in the folder area.

My guess is that Ubuntu's interface was designed with the assumption that the user would first name the file, then choose the location to save it. I don't work this way and my guess is that I'm not alone. I like to see the contents of a folder before choosing how to name a new file.

I don't have a Mac to hand but I'll try and have a play with one to see how they do it over the next couple of days - I'm sure they've got a smart solution to this problem, and their layout is similar to Ubuntu's (with the name field at the top).

In summary: If a folder is double clicked with the mouse, focus should jump to the Name field. That is the only change I am proposing for this paper cut. If enter is used to enter a folder, focus in the folder area should be maintained (the current behaviour). Advanced users would not be affected, but non-advanced users would be saved from a lot of clicking.