The latest updates on KDE Neon appear to have brought in an updated KIO open/save dialog file picker that changes some behavior I was accustomed to. I don't mind re-learning things or adjusting my workflow, but it's more awkward now than it was before.

First, it no longer automatically filters the directory contents when you start typing a name. That was super convenient when trying to save a file in a directory that contains a lot of other directories. I found the quick filter toggle in the preferences in the upper right, but it isn't persistent. Each time the file picker comes up in Firefox, I have to click the preferences icon and re-check it, or press Ctrl+I, to show the filter bar.

Is there a way to change the default so that always shows the quick filter bar? Or re-enable the filter-on-type behavior? I already have it set to always show the filter bar in Dolphin but that doesn't seem to make a difference in the file picker.

I suspect that something can change those toggle defaults because on one of my installations it defaults to showing hidden files and on another one it doesn't. However, I haven't found any settings that seem to affect that behavior persistently yet. I don't mind editing a config file if there isn't a GUI option for it.

EDIT:

I looked through the KIO source and didn't see anything that might have been a config file option, and I tried several variations of the the name under [KFileDialog Settings] in my ~/.config/kdeglobals configuration but haven't hit one that makes it stick. For example I tried Show Quick Filter=true, Quick Filter Mode=true and various permutations of lines similar to those.

It is slightly faster to click a directory and start filtering with \ which also opens the filter bar, which I may have to live with for now.