For example when I try to save the destination of a link in firefox or save a copy of a pdf file in evince I get the following dialogue.
I find it annoying that I have to do some clicks (for example the tmp button and that to its left in my example) to select the folder. So is there a way to do this with keyboard only with some kind of tab completion?
Perhaps it's just changing a key in gconf perhaps it is possible to replace the saving dialogues by something better.
The usual TAB doesn't work because it's bound to tab completion in the filename field. You can CTRL+TAB out of it and then TAB onwards (with or without CTRL once you're out of the name box) and then use the keyboard from there on (arrows/space).
That said, if you just select all the text in the name box (CTRL-A) and type a pathname like /home/ (with both slashes) and press enter, the dialog switches to the correct folder, which is my preferred way of doing it. If you know exactly where you want to save you can also just enter an absolute pathname in the name box, once you've typed the initial / you even have tab completion for folders.
So to save something as /home/Bristol/Downloads/a.pdf I can do [CTRL+A] (select all) / h [TAB] B [TAB] D [TAB] a.pdf [ENTER]
Note: This works on my Ubuntu 10.04/Gnome 2.30.2 system, I think it applies to all of Gnome but I'm not sure.
