IANAP, and I am not sure I filed this report in the right place. I am using XFCE 4.8 as shipped by Xubuntu 11.10 Everytime I want to save something, I start in this useless (imo) "Recently Used" page, while 95% of times I load something, I want to save it in the same directory. (Occasionally, I start in some path I used at a certain time during my session, but I still haven't found the logic behind when this occurs.) Luckily, you can paste (Ctrl+V) a path from the clipboard so you can just copy the path from your file explorer. However, this does not work while "Recently Used" is selected (the default case). It pops up an error: "The folder contents could not be displayed. Operation not supported." The little pencil symbol (representing the ability to enter a custom path) is selected at this time, so there shouldn't be a problem. Click away the error message, click the pencil to disable custom path enter mode, click the pencil again to enter custom path mode again (this time, a Location: bar appears), press Ctrl+V to paste your path, and NOW it works. I think pressing Ctrl+V [enter] should be enough to navigate to given path without further ado. Also, when the clipboard holds a path with a filename, said file should be used as if one manually navigated there, but without ado.
This is a change in Gtk+. See bug https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=667252
That report addresses the "recent files annoyance", but this bug is not mentioned: Ctrl+V (paste location) is not working because the location bar is hidden (paragraph 3-4 in this bugreport), even though the location bar toggle switch is activated by default and needs to be switched off and on again before it actually works (paragraph 5-6 in this bug report). Since there is no mention of this in the linked report, I am reopening this bug. If you still think this actual bug is not related to XFCE, feel free to close it again.
Sorry, the save dialog is provided by Gtk, it has nothing to do with Xfce/Thunar.
Oops, didn't know that. Thanks.