Location bar missing from Open Files dialog

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1337ingDisorder
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Location bar missing from Open Files dialog

Post by 1337ingDisorder »

I recently upgraded to 20.3 and one thing I'm having trouble getting back is the location bar at the top of Open File dialogs.

TL;DR: How do I get the location bar back in Open File dialogs? [Mint 20.3 MATE x64]

Details:

I recall in previous versions there was a button just to the left of the folder path buttons at the top of the dialog, which would switch from displaying the path as buttons, to displaying the path as a text box that you could edit to manually enter a new directory path.

This made it easy to navigate into hidden folders without cluttering up the display, not to mention much faster to move to different folders within the file system.

Setting aside the latter convenience factor, this raises a basic usability issue: in 20.3 the only way I can find to navigate into hidden folders in the Open File dialog is a fairly onerous workaround: right-click on the Open File dialog, select "Show hidden files", manually scroll through the list of files looking for the specific file, click the file, then click Open.

Obviously that's a huge hassle compared to just typing a '.' and the first couple letters of the hidden directory/file and letting autocomplete fill in the rest of the filename.

And then to make matters worse, the next time I bring up the Open File dialog, the display is all cluttered up with hidden folders, so then I have to right-click and uncheck "Show hidden files" unless I'm specifically looking for a hidden file/folder again.

Plus all this assumes you even have a mouse to begin with — is it even *possible* to open hidden files/folders on a keyboard-only system in 20.3?

I can't imagine any sane person (much less an entire dev community's consensus) would conclude this to be an improvement over previous versions, so I have to assume I'm just missing a crucial settings option somewhere.

Can anyone help explain how to get the location bar back in Open File dialogs?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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