Comment 22 for bug 164298

Actually the current design implementation in Print dialog box is not good since the beginning.
The good way would have been to make the functionality available to other applications and let them decide if they want/need to use it. I guess that some applications would have implemented the feature and some other not. I also guess that those which would have implemented it would have used a dedicated entry "Export as..." in the File menu.
Not all applications would have need it : some applications are editor some other are viewers ; some applications deal with text, some other with pictures, video or music.
I guess that a text editor or a web browser would have use it whereas a video editor would have not.
Concerning document viewers (evince) or image viewers (EoG) i don't know if they would have use it.

Instead of that, developers took a shortcut in adding the functionality for all applications in the Print dialog box.

I see 2 possibilities (although i don't know if it's technically doable) regarding former comment by mac_v :
A)
1°) Remove all the "print as file" stuff in the Print dialog box
2°) Create a trick to display a dedicated entry "Export as..." in the File menu each time the application has a "Print" entry
3°) Create a setting to allow applications to refuse the "Export as..." menu entry
This approach would be similar to the recent GNOME design decision to drop icons from menus by default : each application can decide to display some icons anyway by using the always-show-icons property of GtkImageMenuItem.

B)
1°) Remove all the "print as file" stuff in the Print dialog box
2°) Create an easy way for GNOME applications to add a dedicated entry "Export as..." in the File menu
(see comment #16)
3°) Fill bug reports against applications that would take benefit from that functionality

What do you think?