How is single-click working for you?

[Agnus]

Hello again!

I wonder how well does it work for you guys the "everything single click" of KDE 4? Do you think there are usability issues with it? My view is mostly positive BUT I have experienced some scenarios that make file management very awkward. Some examples:

1. I am browsing a folder with lots of files in detail view. I want to select a bunch of them from somewhere in the middle of the view. If I miss the "green cross" the following happens:
a) clear of the selection
b) opening of the file, usually with a heavy weight program like OpenOffice or Amarok.

2. Again I am browsing a folder with lots of files in detail view. The files I want to manage are in a sequence so I try to: select the first -> shift + click / up / down to select the rest. Problem is that the selection sometimes does not begin from the currently selected item! Attempts to fix the wrongly selected items by clicking probably results back to problem #1.

3. I Open a tar.gz containing lots of files with Ark and I want to select and extract only some. 99.99% any clicking will lead to file open! This can be really slooowwww especially if the zip if big and from a network drive!

I think that if I am facing this problems so frequently, these would be much more of problem to a novice user. What do you think?

[kubicle]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

I wonder how well does it work for you guys the "everything single click" of KDE 4?

Single-click was the default in KDE before KDE4, and it's still configurable in KDE4

As for the problems you mentioned, most of them can be avoided by using Ctrl+Click to select/deselect (this won't open the files you click)

[vinnywright]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

no has never botherd me in fact I'v ben dealing with it that way so long I becom upset when I get on a box that neads a dubell click...he he.

but it can esaley be changed go system setings>keybord and mouse>mouse and check duble click to open files

PS: holding the ctrl key wile selecting in singel click moad will prevent them from opening and after one is selectid the holding shift and clicking the last in the line you want dose select them all.

VINNY

[sithlord48]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

you can as kubicle points out change it to Dbl. click very easily check

System Settings-> Keyboard & Mouse - > Mouse (look at bottom half of that dialog)

[suplero]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

Clicking and dragging the mouse also works for sequential files.

The click will only activate the file [open, change directory, etc] if the file name is clicked on. Clicking on the + or - for the file will add or remove the selection, but if you click on any white space after the name, and even in any other field besides the name, will allow click-dragging to select a bunch of files. However, when clicking anything other than the + or - icon anything previously selected will be unselected. For example if a file 3 files down from the top is selected, and then a click occurs in the white space beside file #8, file #3 will be unselected and block selecting will only be around file #8

For non-sequential files the ctrl-click is also my preferred option.

I have also found that files are actually ordered by their selection order and not file order.

For example, I select a bunch of songs, expecting Amarok to play them in numerical or alphabetical order, but that doesn't happen. The long song names end up playing first, and I'm thinking it is because they highlight first.

The click-drag method also allows selecting by name length if that is a desired option. Files will only become selected when the mouse path crosses any characters in their name. This is sometimes useful for me.

Ark doesn't have this same behavior unfortunately, so I can't address #4.

[suplero]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

I played around with Ark a little and this is what I found:

starting from scratch, Ark will preview any file left clicked on. However, once any file is selected then it will become the "last file selected" and be the starting point for any ctrl-click and shift-click work. Also shift-pgdn and shift-pgup work for selecting blocks of files as well.

You can also start with a right click to just select any single file without opening it. that file then becomes the starting point for any subsequent shift-click, shift-pgup or shift-pgdn selecting. Shift-home and shift-end also work for selecting large blocks of files in Ark.

[suplero]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

This might be off-topic, but since I already talked a bit about it, I figured I would add this to the discussion to see if this should be considered a bug or not.

When doing click-drag selecting, the order of highlighting [or selecting] is stored/remembered when the selected files are opened together.

As an example, I took the contents of a CD with good variable name lengths and did a left click at the bottom right of the konqueror window in the white space, and the dragged the mouse straight up to the top, and then moved right to left to select all the files. they were highlighted/selected as soon as the mouse box hit the first filename character in each file.

the click-drag image show this progression - first only a few are selected, then a bit more files get selected as the mouse moves left, and then more, etc. At the end I highlighted them all and then right-clicked to open them in kaffeine, and then captured the playlist order.

the playlist order resembles the file selection order, and is essentially ordered by name length.

The question at hand then seems to be whether this would be considered a bug or a feature of some sort.

[kubicle]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

The question at hand then seems to be whether this would be considered a bug or a feature of some sort.

I'd consider "remember select order" a feature, since with some programs (like kompare) the order in which files are opened makes a difference. But I see your point that this can lead to unexpected results, especially when "mouse-drag-selecting" items

[Agnus]

Re: How is single-click working for you?

Indeed ctrl + click -> shift + click, works great with both Dolphin and Ark. Thank you all!

Still the problem remains with the "green cross" click -> shift + click. Please try some random selections with this method and you will see that the starting point is not always what you would expect. I think this is a bug. If it isn't a bug, it is confusing behavior.

Finally an idea I just had. How about changing the mouse cursor to "hand" when goes over the "green cross" area? You know like when hovering links on the web.. The rationale is to emphasize the different actions (select vs open).