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Please add completion drop-down to the entry fields that requires to type file/directory name (e.g. Project Import Wizard/Project Content field, New Project Wizard/ External Location, New file/Advanced/Link to the file system, etc). It should proide a choice of the files/directories for current location, so it will be possible to save some time and don't use "Browse" button in most of the cases. This feature is supported natively on Windows 2000/XP in all Open/Choice directory/Save as... dialogs.
The problem with doing this for import especially is that we would have to read a directory every time qwe did it (thats why we only do it when the entry field loses focus). The performance hit outweighs the convenience.
Tod, I'd like to suggest a workarround for this. You can start reading directory only when user actually typed some char, this will limit the number of matched files/dirs. If you still think that it will hit a performance, then please read directory and show a drop-down with the result only if user hit a special shorcut (e.g. Ctrl-Space like in other places). This approach will also work for me. I truly believe that performance hit of this will be way less then forcing user to open browse dialog, which could be quite slow by itself. I really hate to wait when directory chooser on windows walks trough all network drives to capture drive labels or some other information. :-(
This is exactly what we did and the problem is that we have to populate a whole table to do it. The way we could do it is to follw the same population algorithm as the table viewer - that is to do it as a background job that can be cancelled when anotehr keystroke comes in. I'll leave this open as with the jobs support the method you suggest is possible now and I'll rename the report appropriately.
Thanks Tod. I just want to point out that in most cases it should not be an issue, because size of the result will be within 5..10 choices, because it is only per current directory, basically last "\". And if you'll go with a custom triggerred drop-down (e.g. user hit Ctrl-Space), it will be explicit action that is called by the user, so performance should not be an issue at all, because user asked for that action.
The performance issue is actually updating the table when you do get a valid entry BTW.
Hmm, it is sound strange. Entire table should be fetched completely at that moment user hit "/" it will include all files in the directory, so when result it shown, it can be probably filtered in memory without rereading if from the disk on the next keystroke. There colud be some logic around that to save some roundtrips to the disk (if it will be necessary), and again it only happens when user requested it by hitting a Ctrl-Space it should not be an issue.
The "text field + browse button" metaphor is pervasive within apps built on Eclipse. If someone wants to take a stab at providing the functionality described here, we would be happy to discuss it with them, but it would need to be done in a way that doesn't introduce inconsistencies (e.g. it works in platform dialogs but not in ones provided by the other plug-ins). In general, we rely on the native dialogs to provide the optimizations that make sense on each platform.
"As per http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform_UI/Bug_Triage_Change_2009"
This bug hasn't had any activity in quite some time. Maybe the problem got resolved, was a duplicate of something else, or became less pressing for some reason - or maybe it's still relevant but just hasn't been looked at yet. If you have further information on the current state of the bug, please add it. The information can be, for example, that the problem still occurs, that you still want the feature, that more information is needed, or that the bug is (for whatever reason) no longer relevant.
