On a few of the forums I occasionally upload pictures to them.
I click the appropriate button 'upload' or whatever
the website says, a simple file browser opens up and I can
navigate my drive and select a file and upload. But I can
NOT get a preview of the picture (which makes things hard
sometimes).

When I open Gimp, select file -> open, I get 3 panels, left
to right they are: directory, file names, image preview. So
I know it can be done in linux, but not in firefox. Firefox only
gives me 1 panel, both directories and filenames.


Primary question is: how can I get FF to use the same
'file browser' as Gimp or other programs?


I have researched it and have found it mentioned since '07 but
no solution. I found a few hacks with the about:config page
but nothing which provides thumbnails.

Any clues? Any one know what I'm even trying to talk about?

Slackware 12.2, FF 3.0.4, KDE 3.5.10
Although I had the same problem on Kubutnu 8.04 & 8.10.

Firefox simply lacks this feature. Truly, ALL the applications that use GTK+ to render the interface have the same problem. But firefox is even worse, because it can be compiled to use either the GtkFileChooser or its own native dialog, and neither of them support the functionality you want.

The only workaround for this is to use konqueror for these sites where you will be opening images to upload. The KDE file dialogs are the best all around, in my humble opinion.

Isn't Gimp gtk+ as well? ah, never mind - I'm just a
regular user and probably don't know what I'm talking
about anyway.

Well - its not the answer I was hoping for, but
regardless, it seems to be the case. I appreciate your
input and time. I guess I will give Konq. a try for those
sites.

It'd sure be nice if they (FF development) got around to
including that function though. Thanks again.

Hey, I hope you haven't given up. I just tried uploading an image in facebook, and it gives me a thumbnail view. I'm using 3.0.8 so maybe the feature wasn't included in 3.0.4? Hope this helps, if not let me know and I may have another solution for you.

I am using firefox 3.0.8 and Slackware 12.2 with KDE 3.5.10 and the feature you are talking about is available to me. I just tried uploading a picture in facebook and it brought up the file browser dialog and when I click on an image, it displays a thumbnail on the right side. Try upgrading firefox to 3.0.8. If that doesn't work, I may have another solution for you.

Sorry for the double post, my first post didn't show up right away...

Gimp is GTK+ as well, yes. But it doesn't use the default GtkFileChooser, which 99% of the GTK+ based apps use. Firefox could use that or better yet its own self made dialog, but for some reason they don't.

I know that it's not the answer you was longing for, but I have no other really. Unless you are willing to learn to program using GTK and want to patch it yourself or you can convince or pay anyone to do it for you, there's no alternative (other than looking for an alternative application, of course).

There's also kgtk, which is a really ugly hack that let's you use the kde dialogs in *some* Gtk applications. How it will work if all all depends on the application you try and how lucky you are. You can find kgtk probably looking in kde-look or kde-apps.org

Interesting. I will have to research into that, maybe slackware use some custom patch or something.

Or maybe it's the kgtk thingie... is it a gtk dialog or is it the kde file dialog what you see?

EDITED: I've tested this on my most recent build and I can indeed see a thumbnail in the right-most part of the dialog when I select an image in the "open file" dialog. Maybe this functionality was added only on recent gtk versions. If all tw001_tw needs is that, then he might just need to update gtk then. But that might require updating most gtk dependent programs as well.

If he needs an advanced view where he can see all the files as thumbnails then this won't help though.

What are you talking about? It's right there... you click the image, and there's a preview of it on the side! I tested it with .png, .gif, and .jpg, they all work! Did I misunderstand the question? You click browse for file... it opens up the standard file browser dialog, and you click on the image, and it opens a preview on the side... What did I miss?

@ i92guboj - I'm glad you found it. Is that a GTK dialog then?
@ tw001_tw - You should update your packages and/or firefox.

Yes. But I am not sure when was that feature added. I don't know if it's part of the standard gtk file chooser now, or if it's some custom dialog or whatever. I am not a gtk+ programmer and don't follow it so closely.

I am not sure any longer. But yes, it will be useful to know what version of both firefox and gtk+ he is using.

He is using firefox 3.0.4. I couldn't find it in the changelogs for firefox so I'm assuming its new in GTK.

You will need to use slackpkg to update your gtk packages. The command should be...

slackpkg update
slackpkg upgrade gtk+

(man, am I glad I took the time to check this thread to
see if anything changed!)


A huge and colossal thanks to 1337 & i92guboj!

Upgrading FF to 3.0.8 was the trick.
I first tried upgrading gtk+ but apparently I already
have the newest ver. so I tried FF, and low and behold,
thumbnails appear when I click on the file names.

For others reference, I used the slackpkg update given
by 1337.
Thanks again!!