On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 08:26:06 +0000
blender505 <blender505@proton.me> wrote:

Hello,

It goes without saying that Debian is amazing software, and I am
grateful to all of the developers for their valuable time and
dedication to the project.

I have been using Debian for about 6 years, and it is my primary
operating system.

In an effort to "help" with the project, I would like to offer a
quick suggestion (since I am sure that others have brought this up
before, my message will simply add another voice): When saving a
file, the file's name is automatically highlighted in blue, but it is
not selected. This is confusing because a "selected" filename is also highlighted in blue, and I often---without thinking---proceed to edit
the file's name just to find out that I am actually changing the save location. Two potential remedies would be: (1) do not automatically
highlight the file's name in blue (so that our brains do not trick us
into thinking the name is selected), or (2) automatically select the
file's name from the beginning so that our expectation---which is
formed from the blue highlight---is met.

It is the file manager that determines that kind of behaviour, and it
may well be customisable. The common file managers are Thunar and
Nautilus, the latter usually identifying itself as 'Files'. The name of
your file manager and Mr Google may help you find a fix for this, or at
least whether other people have trouble with it.

--
Joe

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 2026-03-21, blender505 wrote:

message will simply add another voice): When saving a file, the file's name is
automatically highlighted in blue, but it is not selected. This is confusing because a "selected" filename is also highlighted in blue, and I

Could you tell us what environment/window manager/tool you use when you
see that ?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 12:32?PM blender505 <blender505@proton.me>
wrote:

Hello,

It goes without saying that Debian is amazing software, and I am grateful

to all of the developers for their valuable time and dedication to the pro ject.

I have been using Debian for about 6 years, and it is my primary operatin

g system.

In an effort to "help" with the project, I would like to offer a quick su

ggestion (since I am sure that others have brought this up before, my messa
ge will simply add another voice): When saving a file, the file's name is a utomatically highlighted in blue, but it is not selected. This is confusin
g because a "selected" filename is also highlighted in blue, and I often--- without thinking---proceed to edit the file's name just to find out that I
am actually changing the save location. Two potential remedies would be: (
1) do not automatically highlight the file's name in blue (so that our brai
ns do not trick us into thinking the name is selected), or (2) automaticall
y select the file's name from the beginning so that our expectation---which
is formed from the blue highlight---is met.

I'll ignore those who don't know that GNOME is the standard Debian
desktop environment since, well, a long time and assume you're using a
standard Debian install.

I remember being annoyed by the same issue in the past, but I haven't
been for some time, I wonder if the behavior changed between Debian 12
and Debian 13. I can't repeat it with the few tools I tried now:
Firefox, OpenSCAD (Qt), LibreOffice Calc, GNOME Text Editor, and
blender (completely custom UI).

What tool do you use when you see this, and is this only when trying
to save to a tile that already exists, or only for new files?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Dear Joe,

Thank you very much for the response, and I apologize for my slow reply (I
set up this email account to interact with Debian developers, and then I fo rgot to check it until now---I shall be more consistent going forward).

I just did a quick Google search on how to discover which file manager I am
using, and nothing usable came up. In lieu of that information, I have De bian GNU/Linux 12 bookworm with the Cinnamon desktop environment.

I recall looking into this ("quasi extensively") in the past, but to no ava
il. I am by no means a sophisticated Linux user: so some of the potential "fixes" were probably beyond my abilities.

One motivation for bringing up the issue is an attempt to lower the barrier
s to entry of layman Linux users (reduce their frustrations) to encourage a doption, and I saw this particular issue as low-hanging fruit, since the cu rrent set-up seems quite unintuitive (from my perspective, though).

Thanks again for your time.

Chris.





Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

On Saturday, March 21st, 2026 at 6:26 AM, Joe <joe@jretrading.com> wrote:

On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 08:26:06 +0000
blender505 <blender505@proton.me> wrote:

Hello,

It goes without saying that Debian is amazing software, and I am
grateful to all of the developers for their valuable time and
dedication to the project.

I have been using Debian for about 6 years, and it is my primary
operating system.

In an effort to "help" with the project, I would like to offer a
quick suggestion (since I am sure that others have brought this up
before, my message will simply add another voice): When saving a
file, the file's name is automatically highlighted in blue, but it is
not selected. This is confusing because a "selected" filename is also highlighted in blue, and I often---without thinking---proceed to edit
the file's name just to find out that I am actually changing the save location. Two potential remedies would be: (1) do not automatically highlight the file's name in blue (so that our brains do not trick us
into thinking the name is selected), or (2) automatically select the
file's name from the beginning so that our expectation---which is
formed from the blue highlight---is met.

It is the file manager that determines that kind of behaviour, and it
may well be customisable. The common file managers are Thunar and
Nautilus, the latter usually identifying itself as 'Files'. The name of
your file manager and Mr Google may help you find a fix for this, or at
least whether other people have trouble with it.

--
Joe

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Hello,

Sorry for my slow response.

I am using the cinnamon desktop environment, but I am not sure which window
s manager/tool I am using. I did a straight Debian install, if that is ind icative of anything.





Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

On Saturday, March 21st, 2026 at 6:42 AM, Michel Verdier <listes@verdier.eu

wrote:

On 2026-03-21, blender505 wrote:

message will simply add another voice): When saving a file, the file's

name is

automatically highlighted in blue, but it is not selected. This is conf

using

because a "selected" filename is also highlighted in blue, and I

Could you tell us what environment/window manager/tool you use when you
see that ?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Dear Preston,

Thanks for letting me know that I'm not alone (and overly critical).

Best,
Chris.



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On Saturday, March 21st, 2026 at 11:07 PM, Preston Maness <aspensmonster@ri seup.net> wrote:

On 3/21/26 3:56 AM, Joe wrote:

On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 08:26:06 +0000
blender505 <blender505@proton.me> wrote:

In an effort to "help" with the project, I would like to offer a
quick suggestion (since I am sure that others have brought this up
before, my message will simply add another voice): When saving a
file, the file's name is automatically highlighted in blue, but it is
not selected. This is confusing because a "selected" filename is also
highlighted in blue, and I often---without thinking---proceed to edit
the file's name just to find out that I am actually changing the save
location.

It is the file manager that determines that kind of behaviour, and it
may well be customisable. The common file managers are Thunar and
Nautilus, the latter usually identifying itself as 'Files'. The name of your file manager and Mr Google may help you find a fix for this, or at least whether other people have trouble with it.

This is the behaviour of the Thunar file manager. I know because I too
am regularly bit by this. I simply have never bothered to try reporting

a bug about it.

--
In Solidarity,
Preston Maness
512-955-1048
https://keyoxide.org/79895B2E0F87503F1DDE80B649765D7F0DDD9BD5

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Dear Anders,

Thank you very much for the response; and I apologize for my slow reply (I
am using a new email account that I forgot to check---I will check it regul arly going forward).

I am using the Cinnamon desktop environment by the way.

I just did a "saving test," and I realized that my initial description of e vents was inaccurate. When saving a LibreOffice and/or .jpg file from the internet (for example) the automatically-highlighted text IS pre-selected i nitially (this is good news). Furthermore, if I select a different "main f older" (e.g., "Desktop," "Documents," "Music," etc., from the right-hand "p anel" of the file manager) then the text is STILL selected---this is also g
ood news. However, once I select a sub-folder (within the file manager's m
ain viewing area) the file's name becomes unselected despite still being hi ghlighted in blue. This last case is the problematic one because although
the text is highlighted in all three cases, the meaning of the third case i
s fundamentally different (it has no meaning).

Sorry for my inaccurate description beforehand; I hope that this one makes sense.

Lastly, I suppose that this issue is problematic, in part, because of the i nconsistency: whether or not text is ACTUALLY selected depends on whether a
"main folder" or a "sub folder" was selected when saving the file (sorry,
I'm not sure what the proper terminology is), and since saving a file is so mething that most people do without thinking too much about (I presume), th
is inconsistency can create an unending sequence of "little annoyances".


All my best,

Chris.



Sent with Proton Mail secure email.

On Saturday, March 21st, 2026 at 11:47 PM, Anders Andersson <pipatron@gmail .com> wrote:

On Sat, Mar 21, 2026 at 12:32?PM blender505 <blender505@proton.me
wrote:

Hello,

It goes without saying that Debian is amazing software, and I am gratef

ul to all of the developers for their valuable time and dedication to the p roject.

I have been using Debian for about 6 years, and it is my primary operat

ing system.

In an effort to "help" with the project, I would like to offer a quick

suggestion (since I am sure that others have brought this up before, my mes sage will simply add another voice): When saving a file, the file's name is
automatically highlighted in blue, but it is not selected. This is confus
ing because a "selected" filename is also highlighted in blue, and I often- --without thinking---proceed to edit the file's name just to find out that
I am actually changing the save location. Two potential remedies would be:
(1) do not automatically highlight the file's name in blue (so that our br ains do not trick us into thinking the name is selected), or (2) automatica
lly select the file's name from the beginning so that our expectation---whi
ch is formed from the blue highlight---is met.

I'll ignore those who don't know that GNOME is the standard Debian
desktop environment since, well, a long time and assume you're using a standard Debian install.

I remember being annoyed by the same issue in the past, but I haven't
been for some time, I wonder if the behavior changed between Debian 12
and Debian 13. I can't repeat it with the few tools I tried now:
Firefox, OpenSCAD (Qt), LibreOffice Calc, GNOME Text Editor, and
blender (completely custom UI).

What tool do you use when you see this, and is this only when trying
to save to a tile that already exists, or only for new files?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)