Despite the fact that it has a sane API (which the old widgets didn't have), it also has a number of useability improvements like bookmarks, mime-type icons and the ability to mount volumes. It also features a Win32 backend and in the future it will allow GIMP to work on remote files (if we figure out how to use gnome-vfs w/o pulling in too many dependencies). It is also expected that Search capabilities will be added in the future (see http://primates.ximian.com/~federico/docs/file-chooser-extension-spec/)
If you are missing keyboard navigation in the file chooser, you might want to try a recent GTK+ development snapshot. There have been some improvements in that area.
Yes all the features you mention above are technically very nice, and make it more in line with the standard windows file dialog. However, at the moment it is just plain annoying because it takes longer to select the file I want. Since this is a common task it makes using the new version frustrating to use when I don't dnd from my browser. I will try the latest GTK development snapshot to see if it's any better.
2. Why has the scale factor (ratio) has been removed from the image scale dialog? I personally found it very useful.
It hasn't been removed but got integrated with the units menu. This has been suggested by users a while ago.
Thanks, I'd not found that. The previous dialog suited the way I work better, but being able to select the percentage is OK.
Keith
