[ge-talk] Mouseclick options

[Kevin Field]

> What strikes me as odd though, is do you people never select files at  
> all? By clicking on it, to perform and operation on it? How would  
> this work? By dragging? Surely that's more RSI-inducing than double  
> click to launch. Double clicking works, it's familiar, IMHO there's  
> no pressing need to change it for something that might be better for  
> a handful of completely new computer users, but would be confusing  
> and stress inducing for those of us who've actually used a computer  
> before.
> 
> Much conservative love,
> Niklas:)

Sure.  The operation would change to right-click for one select, right-
drag for multiselect.  Left-drag to, well, drag like normal.

> [elsewhere]
> Every file manager that I know of uses double clicking by default -  
> BeOS, Windows, proper Macs, OS X, GNOME, Amiga - so everyone coming  
> to Haiku is going to 'expect' it to work like that. A change to  
> something so fundamental would be weird for everyone but those who  
> are completely new.

Your (plural) point about keeping norms is well-taken.  I was just 
wondering if, since the computing world is more and more experienced 
through a web browser, we oughtn't migrate to web browser behaviour for 
consistency.

> Let me also chime in here and repeat that my idea isn't to change it, 
> but to offer an alternative to it. Since you've reacted to Kevin 
> Field while at the same time using elements from my original message, I 
felt the need to react.

Yar, sorry about this.  :)  My main "Why not?" was because earlier 
nobody could come up with double-click scenarios besides within 
Tracker.  Now all of the sudden we've remembered some, so the 
discussion can shift back to whether double-click behaviour should be 
an option just in Tracker or in the whole OS.  I didn't mean to come 
across that strongly, still just a discussion.  :)
 
> As you could have concluded from my mail to Stephan, I do (of course) 
> select files...by dragging. That method works better for me: it surely 
is less RSI-inducing than double clicking to launch. 

I agree.  :)

> How do you mean? Do you really feel that double clicking is that bad  
> ergonomically?

When you have to do it a lot to drill down to a file or whatever 
(criticisms of file system hierarchies aside) it does wear on you.

> > As you could have concluded from my mail to Stephan, I do (of  
> > course) select files...by dragging. That method works better for  
> > me: it surely is less RSI-inducing than double clicking to launch.
> 
> I disagree with that, but then I use laptops, mostly. Double clicking  
> on my IBM is done with my thumb, without moving my hands from the  
> keyboard. I suspect that makes a big difference. But even when using  
> a mouse, I can't see how a drag is more ergonomic than a click.

You only need the drag for multi-selecting.  Actually, you don't even *
need* it then, you could right-click, and then as soon as you hold down 
a modifier key the menu can get out of the way so you can right-click 
other files to modify your selection.

> Depending on what's the default, but yes.

So we're talking R2, where we break the mold and go for things that are 
better in the end, no?

> I don't have BeOS to test right now, but at least on my current 
> Ubuntu
> system, double-clicking is also used to select words in text. I think
> power users use this a fair amount. Double clicking also selects all
> the text in the Firefox address bar, and I believe combo boxes behave
> like that on most OSes. This too is useful.

Hmm...I'd call myself a power user yet don't use this very much 
(actually, it sometimes gets in my way.)  When do you need to select 
just one word?  (I.e., then what do you do with it?  Maybe the context 
menu would make whatever that is easier to do.  There could also be 
options to select the current word, sentence, paragraph, or all.)  As 
for the address bar, I usually keyboard it myself.  Again, what do you 
do with it after that?  I usually am either deleting the URL by typing 
over it, or copying the url to paste somewhere else.  Alt-d seems 
faster to me than mousing up and then double-clicking, but perhaps I 
just prefer targeting keys on the keyboard with my fingers over things 
on the screen with the mouse.  Sometimes I guess it would depend on 
whether you had your hand on the mouse at the time or not.

I guess for porting though we'd need to keep some kind of double-click 
built in.  But it'd be good, IMO, if native apps didn't bother with it 
and instead did something better with the two buttons already there.

> Gaim uses double clicking to open a new IM window. Of course I think
> this could be changed to be single-click too, but that is the
> developer's discretion, not the OS's.

Assuming it's in the OS.  ;)

> Plus there are plenty of people who will prefer to double-click in
> Tracker as well. So double-clicking won't be going away. I don't see
> why you are so eager to get rid of it as long as you have a
> single-click option. It isn't like we have to choose only one.

Well, being that this is the R2 discussion list, I'm just trying to 
push for what may be better defaults.

> I think a possible solution to the problem is to slightly change our
> mouse actions (system-wide). Instead of overlapping selection and 
> invocation we
> should make a clear distinction:
> * selection: left-click
> * dragging a selection: left-click-drag
> * invocation: right-click
> * context-menu: right-click
> The context menu still appears when right-clicking, but it's slightly
> off-placed, so you don't accidentally click on it when invoking.
> Invocation can be made more obvious by placing a single menu item
> "Open"/"Invoke" under the mouse cursor, so you know that releasing 
> the
> mouse will invoke.

I'm not exactly sure how you're differentiating between the two right-
click functions.  I would actually be more inclined to go with (just to 
be a bit more consistent with the web browsing experience):

* invocation: left-click
* dragging a single item (or the current selection) to drop somewhere 
else: left-drag
* context menu: right-click

Leaving:

* making a single selection: right-click (try it in Tracker or 
Explorer...this is already how it is)
* making multiple selections without the keyboard: right-drag (not 
currently how it is in Tracker, but this is how it is in Explorer)
* making multiple selections with the keyboard: single selection, then 
modifier key hides context menu to get out of the way of the next click

> I'm not sure if the above suggestion can be made consistent enough
> with our current UI model, though (do you select or invoke a tab? do
> you select or invoke a checkbox?).

Invoke for both, unless you mean the text label on the widget, then 
you'd select, if the dev thought that was an appropriate option.

> I do agree that this change alone isn't really worth the trouble, but
> if we ever make more fundamental changes to our interaction model 
> then
> we should at the same time fix all these annoying inconsistencies.

Yup.  :)

Love,
Kev