Gnome panel "Create Launcher" question - bug or just poor design
 

Gnome 2.30.0 (Ubuntu 10.04) I wish to create a launcher to a particular subdirectory.

- right click on Panel and select Add to Panel
- choose Custom Application Launcher
- Set Type to Location
- input desired Name

Next to the Location text box is a Browse... button. I would expect to be able to browse to the subdirectory which I wish to access with my launcher. However, the Browse... button brings up a window which is titled "Choose a file..." and which will only "Open" a file, not a subdirectory.

Is this a bug I should report or just an example of poor user interface design? If the latter, is the issue with the Create Launcher program (for bringing up a file locater) or with the File Locater program (which should have the option of selecting a location as well as a file?

TIA,

Ken

Perhaps a poor design, but it's functioning as specified. Note that you selected the option to "Create an Application Launcher," so, of course, you were presented with a browser window so you could select the executable application you wished to launch.

In your case, I'm not sure what you mean by a "launcher to a particular subdirectory." A subdirectory is, obviously, not an application (or any thing else) that can, by any conventional meaning of the word, be launched. Can you explain what result you expect when you "launch" a subdirectory? If we knew what result you wanted, we might be able to offer more targeted advice.

On my current desktop (Ubuntu 9.10) I store my OpenOffice.org files in the location (subdirectory at the end of the path) /data/data/OpenOffice. Yes there is a reason for the second /data in the path - beyond the scope of this question. I have a Launcher on the panel which has the properties:

Name: OOo
Location: file:///data/data/OpenOffice

When I click on the launcher it opens the OpenOffice subdirectory in the File Browser. I created the launcher as described in the original post (except that I had to specify the location manually).

Ken

So, from what you say, the application you're starting is the default Web browser you've configured for GNOME. That's because the subdirectory reference you provided is in a URL format, and -- absent some special settings -- a URL is passed to a Web browser for processing.

IIRC, the default browser in a GNOME setup is nautilus, so I guess you could have used nautilus file:///... as the application to be launched, or some other file manager if you so wished.

Getting back to your statement please recall that what I am attempting to do is to add a launcher to the panel which has the same functionality as the Places menu. The Places menu allows me to create bookmarks to remote servers or to locations on the local machine. However, I cannot move the bookmarks to the panel or the Desktop. Thus my option is to create a Launcher.

The Create Launcher dialog presents me with 3 types of Launcher:

Application
Application in terminal
Location

The first two prompt me for a Command. The third prompts me for a LOCATION, not a Command. Thus my belief that the Browse button should allow me to browse to the Location to which I wish the launcher to point. If launchers were intended to only launch executable applications there would be no need for the Location type.

Ken

And when all else fails...

The Create Launcher Help says I think that nails it. I will submit a bug report and see what happens.

Ken