Typing location path instead of clicking directory buttons in the file picker dialog?

I have my nautilus set to always show the location bar instead of the buttons and in Firefox, I see the location bar by default too (what you want, I believe).

To do this you have to change a gconf/dconf entry.

Up to Ubuntu 11.10:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry --type=bool true

From 12.04 LTS and up:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true

You might need to restart nautilus (with nautilus -q) to see the effect but you might not.

In Ubuntu 12.04 and up, you can use Ubuntu Tweak to set by default the address bar in Nautilus.

So, open Ubuntu Tweak, go to Tweaks tab, select File Manage and put ON this field: Use the location entry instead of the pathbar:

From terminal you can make the same thing using the following command:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences always-use-location-entry true

Now, when you are in the Save File window dialog, in the field Name, if you insert an absolute for the file to be saved, that file will be saved in that path:

And when you are in the Open File window dialog, in the field Location, if you insert any location path do you wish and press Enter, you will be directed to that location