Re: Usability problem, and solution proposal

[Christian Schneider <c schneider scram de>]

Nathaniel McCallum wrote:

> On Thu, 2004-09-30 at 22:15 +0200, Christian Schneider wrote:
>  
>
> > I have two solutions for the problem:
> >
> > 1)
> > We provide a way of moving the window under the mouse to the top or the 
> > bottom. What about using the right mouse key for this. So a drag would 
> > work in the following way:
> >
> > Start drag with holding left mouse button on the source file. Then you 
> > can click the right mouse button to move the source window to the bottom 
> > of the window stack. So you get a full view of the target window. In the 
> > same way you could use the right mouse button to bring the target window 
> > up if you see at least a part of it.
> >    
> The problem with this is that you loose the ability to cancel your drag
> by clicking the right mouse button.  You also loose the ability to use
> single button mice (PPC).  Its also not discoverable.  
>
>  
The ability to cancel the drag is indeed important. But it could be done 
with the clipboard hotspots I will mention below.

> I think the best solution is to send the source window to the bottom of
> the window stack when you drag icons off the window.  You can still drag
> within the window and nothing will happen (say to a subfolder).  But
> when you leave the bounds of the window, the source window jumps to the
> bottom of the stack.
>  
It is sure very discoverable but I fear it could be a shock for people 
using it the first time as they perhaps think they deleted the folder.
Another problem is that it is not undoable. When you accidently move out 
of the window you can´t bring it up again easily.

>  
>
> > 2)
> > We provide a kind of a visual clipboard. When you start the drag the 
> > clipboard appears at the right bottom of the screen. You can then drag 
> > the file to the clipboard and drop it there. Then you bring the target 
> > folder up and drag the file from the clipboard to the target folder.
> >    
>
> The good thing about this is instant discovery.  However, it could get
> dangerous.  For instance, what happens if the clipboard jumps up half
> above the trash can and you mis-drag and end up deleting stuff you meant
> to stick on the clipboard?  I do think the idea has merit though...  It
> would provide a cool way to drag from multiple folders.  ie, you could
> pile up stuff in the clipboard from a bunch of different folders then
> drag them all to the destination folder when you have accumulated
> everything.
>  
If the window appears directly when you start the drag this should be no 
problem. Perhaps we could even have spots on the clipboard window for 
different actions. Like copy, move, delete, cancel. So these different 
functions could be accessed without the keyboard too.

Christian