Hello, convenience lovers! We are all using GNU/Linux technologies. Ever dissatisfied when doing open/save in your application? Perhaps you want it to show you thumbnails preview but not, allows modes other than list view but not, provide search but not, display recent files but not, or you expect it puts all storage disks right at the front but not. I will help you choose a technology you can see below between KDE, GNOME, Elementary OS, Deepin, and LXDE so you can decide which distro you will use or even share with family later.

 

(File dialog from Deepin is the best file dialog in all GNU/Linux techs today)

 

elementary OS

GTK, Pantheon
- List view only
- No thumbnails view
- No side preview
- No zoom
- No search
- OK/Cancel button: bottom

- Disk drives hidden behind Other Locations, external storages appear on left panel

Deepin OS

DTK, Qt, Deepin File Manager
- List view, thumbnails view
- Search
- Sortable
- Zoom
- Side preview
- Side panel for file details
- OK/Cancel button: bottom

- All storages appear on left panel and it has Computer view to see them all

 

 

Distro you can choose with this: Deepin

Lubuntu

GTK, LXDE
- List view only
- No thumbnails view
- No preview, except side preview for selected file
- No search

- Disk drives hidden behind Other Locations, external storages appear on left panel

KDE

KDE 5.20, Qt 5
- List view, compact view, thumbnails view
- Sortable
- Active preview
- Side preview: yes, switchable
- Zoom
- No search

- All storages appear on left panel

Distro you can choose: Kubuntu, Ubuntu Studio 20.04 and later, KDE Neon, openSUSE, Netrunner, Mageia, OpenMandriva

GNOME

GTK3, Ubuntu
- List view only
- No thumbnails view
- No preview except side preview for selected file
- No zoom
- Search

- OK/Cancel button: top 

- Disk drives hidden behind Other Locations, external storages appear on left panel

As you can see from the details above, Deepin and KDE has the most features for their file dialogs except the latter does not have search. All of these have preview except elementary OS' file chooser. Finally, for similar group of GTK technologies, only Ubuntu's file chooser has search alongside with preview.

---

This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.