No File Dialog Memory in 1193 for OS X?

[dmcclain]

Hi,

I could swear the previous version had native file dialogs that remembered the working location. The latest version seems mindless, requiring a top-down search on every file open. I could find no global settings to enable working directory memory.

The problem seems to happen only on native file dialogs. The embedded Linux-like file dialogs seem to behave okay, but they lack some features, such as being able to create new folders on the fly, going to machine top-level for locating alternate drives, etc.

Maybe there is a switch buried somewhere in a startup file or menu that I missed?

- DM

[Juan Conejero]

Hi,

I cannot reproduce this problem. Native file dialogs remember open and save locations without problems with 1.8.4.1193 on our OS X machines (running OS X 10.10.5 and 10.11.1).

Could this be caused by a custom setting on your computer?

[dmcclain]

Hi Juan,

I cannot imagine what custom settings you might be referring to. But there is an issue that PI uses Qt tools. And you may have a more complete / slightly different version than I have from just the installation of PI. Could that be the cause?

I did reinstall the previous version of PI, and indeed it had memory on the native file open / save dialogs. My latest PI installation still does not have memory in native, but it does have memory in the Linux-style dialogs. The Linux-style have troubles reaching my second disk drive. But I can generally get things started if I use the PI File Browser to find that disk first, then open an image from it. Thereafter the Linux-style dialogs have a handle to the directory tree on the second drive.

Must just be growing pains. I have seen these kinds of abrupt behavior changes in other programs that attempt to use an OS-agnostic user interface. Over time they gradually get ironed out. The new PI must have a new Qt too.

- DM

[dmcclain]

Just FYI, every time I call Open... in the native file open dialog, it always begins from my local Documents folder. That tells me that they are using one of the Apple standard location file handles in their call. This is a multi-platform method that attempts to become OS independent, where certain kinds of files are stored in a Documents folder, others in App Support folders, etc.

I don't know the names used in C/C++ on OS X, but in Lisp we have a function called (Get-Folder-Path <arg>) where we can specify as argument an OS agnostic path spec, :documents, :appdata, :my-documents, :common-appdata, :common-documents, etc. On some OS some of these may refer to the same location.

- DM

[Juan Conejero]

Definitely not reproducible. I have just made several tests on OS X 10.10.5 and 10.11.1, and native OS X file dialogs always remember the folder used in the previous file open/save operation, both during the current session and across successive executions of the PixInsight Core application. Tests made with the official 1.8.4.1193 distribution on two iMac 27" machines (late 2013 and late 2015 Retina 5K models). Both machines use standard OS X configurations, especially the iMac 5K, which has arrived two weeks ago.

I don't know why this happens on your machine, but I can't reproduce it.

[pfile]

i don't see this behavior either - DM, do you have the list of "recent places" in the drop-down when you click on the folder name menu at the top of the open file dialog box?

rob