Use system save/load dialog on OS X and Windows

[kvanbere]

I dislike the godot save/load window. It feels inconsistent with all the other apps running. You lose all your keyboard shortcuts and not all your OS-specific favorite locations are mirrored across.

It would be nice if the save and open dialogs could use the OS X and Windows default save/open dialogs on those systems so that they benefit from the familiar feel of the system specific UX and help users to find their files quicker.

[kvanbere]

Here is a comparison of how they appear on my machine.

[kvanbere]

You can see that the UX for the system save/open dialog is richer and includes things that aren't shown in godot; iCloud, Air Drop, shared boxes and a more detailed file browsing UX with recent locations that are consistent with the systems file browser.

[Calinou]

Godot does not rely on any system dialogs, and I think it should stay this way by default. Consistency across an application can be a virtue.

I would welcome this as an option, though. But Linux support does matter as well 😄

(I also think the file browser should default to a "list" view rather than an "icons" view, which is far more compact and usable, especially on smaller displays.)

[reduz]

Sorry, this is not going to happen. The UI may look nicer, but this road was not taken because users preferred to have better previews for resources instead of consistency with the OS. Closing.

[reduz]

in any case, if you would like the built-in filedialog to support something to make your life easier, feel free to request it

[kvanbere]

Thank you for addressing this @reduz.

Whilst I respect the reasons that this was done, it's probably not practical for me to flood the issue tracker with feature requests. People obviously value things differently, so what one person values (as a power user) in a Linux environment is probably very different to what another person values in an OS X or Windows environment.

Things that you might take for granted, for example navigating from the root of your file system to your home directory or from the file system root into a removable storage device, are not very straightforward for your average artist or high school student. It is more likely that they will become frustrated and blame it on godot. Familiarity is the strongest UX you can provide here and I urge you to reconsider whether it could be possible to mux the current implementation for Linux and offer a more uniform solution for OS X and Windows.

Ideally with infinite resources, yes, you could provide a good experience on every platform, but up until now I've seen a very reasonable philosophy of outsourcing functionality, to get more for less cost.

[gingerbeardman]

Here we are a few years alter, and I wondered about the current opinion on this? Has anything changed?

Personally I find the Godot file picker to be a barrier and hurdle to the Pixelorama app that I am using.

It would be good if there was an Option to use the system file picker.

The "better previews for resources" as mentioned above is not something I am familiar with, can somebody please clarify?

This is what I see when I choose File/Open:

[bruvzg]

Also, if you export for macOS with the sandbox entitlement enabled (AFAIK, currently it's not hard requirement for the App Store distribution, but eventually it will be), native dialog is the only option to select files outside the app container. For the sandboxed app, Godot file dialog is completely broken and useless (and probably there's no fix for this, it's done deliberately for security reasons).

[gingerbeardman]

@bruvzg this is by far the most important point for allowing use of the native system file picker, thank you

[bruvzg]

There's native dialog module for Godot https://github.com/GodotExplorer/NativeDialogs for macOS, Windows, and Linux, but it's not updated for the long time (probably incompatible with the Godot 4.x), and I have uploaded my own module implementation (macOS File and Alert panels only, works with both 4.x and 3.x) - https://github.com/bruvzg/mac_file_panels

[Calinou]

The "better previews for resources" as mentioned above is not something I am familiar with, can somebody please clarify?

Resource previews are only available in the editor-only EditorFileDialog, not in FileDialog which is used in Godot projects.

See also #36053.

You may want to open a proposal for this feature, as feature proposals are now tracked in the Godot proposals repository.

[gingerbeardman]

#36053 seems to be reinventing the wheel, and despite its good intentions will never able to please some Linux/Mac/Windows users who expect their system file picker.

So, I'll open a proposal. Thanks

[gingerbeardman]

Proposal filed! godotengine/godot-proposals#1123