Re: Copy-Paste between filemanager and document editor

[Liam Quin <liam holoweb net>]

Heikki Keranen wrote:
> DnD in mobile environments is not very convinient.  [...]
> the connection to the screen is unreliable (the item you are dragging
> might drop to a wrong place).
> And second: In a small screen there is usually only one window visible
> which makes impossible to DnD between applications. That's why clipboard
> should offer the same functionality [...]

I agree.  One alternative would be to have a "drag mode" in which, once
the drag is started, you can let go, and must click again (tap with a
figure or make some other clear gesture) to do the drop.  Buttons on the
screen saying drop here / cancel, and maybe clone / move, might help,
at least as an option.


drag and drop, pointing out somewhere I was not at all clear:
> Liam Quin wrote:
[...]
> Unfortunately, by the time you are dragging, if you are moving, it's
> too late to change your mind.  This destroys the principle of safe
> experimentation.

Strictly speaking, as Calum Benson <calum.benson@sun.com> kindly pointed
out, this isn't correct, because you can press Control during the drag.
Furthermore, as on Sun's open look implementation, yuo can press Esc
(or the Sun STOP key if you have one) at any tiem to cancel the drag.

What I had intended to say, though, was that it is not clear to the
user that this is possible.  There is no visual affordance, as they
say, nothing to click on, nothing to show that you can do these things.

Lee

-- 
Liam Quin - Barefoot in Toronto - liam@holoweb.net - http://www.holoweb.net/
Ankh: irc.sorcery.net www.valinor.sorcery.net irc.gnome.org www.advogato.org
author, The Open Source XML Database Toolkit, Wiley, August 2000
Co-author, The XML Specification Guide, Wiley, 1999