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In the existing "File Already Exists" dialog box, the box you get when you try to drop a file in a folder that already has a file with that name, it is not very clear which file is being moved and which one is already there. It would be good, as someone suggested to me, if there was a clear way to know which file is the one being moved. I think the best way would be an arrow pointing from the file being moved to the existing file. This would probably be localization-dependent, moving from left to right in left-to-right languages and moving from right to left in right-to-left languages.

You can see the arrow in the dialog box below. It is just an example from the oxygen icon theme, the actual arrow icon could be just about anything.

Very nice one.

I Agree, an arrow is needed and maybe with a big red X cross on top of the "to be overwritten" file.

I am not in favor of the X because I think it will make the file underneath harder to see. Sometimes the differences between two files, particularly pictures, can be very subtle and the x might hide those differences.

This is a great idea.

bcooksley wrote:This is a great idea.

agreed. i recently noticed how hard it was to tell which file was being replaced at first.

There isn't an arrow in 4.5, but it should be more explicit.

Ain't this already covered your older wish?
brainstorm.php#idea38911

Like this

http://simplest-image-hosting.net/jpeg-0-go-to-jpeg
http://simplest-image-hosting.net/png-0 ... p4-5-png-0

And this as well has the same problem as the older, the text say "overwrite left with right" and arrow suggest that left overwrites the right".

No, they are separate ideas, I just used the same mockup for both because I am lazy. That one was specifically about the buttons while this one is specifically about the arrow. Also, note that one is implemented while this one is not, that is because I changed the buttons but I didn't add an arrow.

I agree that it should be more easy to see which file is going to be overwritten with whichone.
But I don't like the solution with the arrow as it's not clear whether (arrow to the right)
- the left file will move to the position of the right file and overwrite it
- the file was the left one before and will be the right one after the move

BTW: you also made the mistake. you talked about the first version but on the image the arrow goes from the overwritten to the overwriting file.

The arrow is very simple.

If you copy file 1 to folder where is file 1, it gets overwritten.

If you move file 1 to folder where is file 1, it gets owerwritten.

It should not be thinked at all "the file 1 becames the file 1"

That is the metadata what is the creation and modification (and access) time on the files and user makes the desicion based that itself when itself comparing the dates and seeing just the info "left overwrites right".

Just like on my older mockups, the arrow just is very simple.

I do have somewhere a mockup (what I should post here) for different dialoges when copying or moving files what shows animation and is very clear about overwriting.

There is the possibility that a user thinks like that as I wasn't shure what is meant when I had only read the title and watched the image (and hadn't read the text)
and I think the possibilityfor missunderstandings is enought to say: no there has to be a better solution.

I think this idea is implemented a while ago

In 4.6 (cant tell about previous) i says

This action will override destination
source - destination

4.5 actually (I know because I implemented it). However, this idea is about an arrow icon, which is not implemented.