Common Dialog: How useless you’ve become

So when you saw the title Common Dialog you were probably thinking about some rough verbiage from a B movie. But being computer geeks, what we are really talking about here is the CFD or Common File Dialogs. If you’ve ever click “File” | “Open” then you know what I’m talking about. That little Window that allows you to go browsing for a file, find that file, and then open the file. Those more advanced users out there may have even used the “File” | “Save” command in an application to do something wonderful like persist some data to disk.

Back in the heyday of Windows XP, the CFD didn’t get much respect. Not that it complains much about it. It just went about it’s job, quietly allowing users a viewport into their storage. But now, the CFD is on the move. Someone at Microsoft thought that it needed an overhaul. So now in the latest Vista build (the February CTP or 5308 as of this writing), the CFD has become a powerful force for evil. That’s right; evil. We’ll dive into the specifics on that in a bit.
As a “frequent beta tester”, I’ve become inured to the constant change introduced by new versions, new builds, fresher bits, etc. For example there’s the Office 2007 Ribbon and Floatie. There’s the Windows Vista Sidebar. Who can forget the Messenger 8 advertisements and videos – some of which are not “corporate friendly” – those of you who’ve ever had to take a class entitled “Harassment training” know what I mean. But along comes the deal breaker. Now, we have the CFD to end all CFD’s. The Common File Dialog box that just makes you pray that Microsoft gets search working correctly so that you’ll NEVER have to use the “File” | “Open” again. Oh, the humanity.
Some of you may be wondering what is so bad about the new dialog. Let’s take a walk through nostalgia corner first and look at the last truly great CFD (from Windows XP):

Look at that classic layout. Notice the functional “Common Places” bar along the left side. That bar has things like “My Computer”, “My Documents”, “Desktop”, “My Network Places”. These are locations we can all relate to. In corporate environments it is even possible to use Group Policy Objects (GPO) to set which items appear in the Common Places bar. This dialog has it all. Simple, non-pretentious, succinct, concise – that about sums it up. Anyone who has used a computer can use this guy to browse for a file.
As shown here, you can even open a SharePoint site through My Network Places in this doozy of a classic:

Now, along comes the new kid on the block – the Super Duper new contender, the Vista CFD:

In this eyesore of a dialog, you can sometimes open files – if you can find out how to get to them. At first, I thought it was just me. But then, I started noticing that all of my coworkers would get the same haunted look in their eyes when they made the mistake of clicking “File” | “Open”. That look that says either, “Help, I’m being held prisoner in a dialog of bad design” or “Get out of the way, I’m sprinting for the bathroom.” (I’m betting on the first one.)

For those of you brave enough to essay the “File” | “Open” command in Vista, one thing you’ll want to note well is that little “up arrow” near the bottom left of the listview control – where it says “Folders”. If you always click that arrow as your first step after entering the CFD from Hell you’ll be better off. Unfortunately to date, I haven’t been able to figure out a way to make the folder list STAY open between uses.
Did anyone else notice the strangely placed “Share” and “Sync with other PC’s” commands in this version of CFD? Isn’t that what you’d always do when opening a file? Stop what you are doing and realize that instead of opening and editing that important file – what you really MEANT to do was share out your documents folder? Or maybe you really wanted to sync with other machines? Is it just me, or do those buttons not belong in a task based dialog for opening and saving files? Can I really go an entire paragraph of rhetorical questions?

All joking aside, has anyone else found that the CFD something to be worked around instead of simple to work with? If so, be sure to send in your Beta feedback and maybe we can get the evil dialog put out of our misery.

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