Re: Theory question on desktop and gmc

[Tim Allen <timallen godzilla zeta org au>]

On Thu, 24 Jun 1999, Michael ROGERS wrote:

> >Here's my Beaut Idea for a middle-mouse drag action. It's kinda weird.. 
> >Now, we have "paste" bound to middle-click (release?). But if we *move*
> >the mouse before release (a middle-drag) we get a special context menu - a
> >"paste as..." list. So, you select a bunch of files, zip over to another
> >gmc, and middle drag, which pops up options like "copy", "move", "soft
> >link", "hard link" (Yes, I know these are copies of the right-click items,
> >but bear with me), maybe "paste filenames to file", or "run a command on
> >these filenames in this directory", that kind of thing. If the paste
> >target is something like gnumeric, we get "open file", "embed file",
> >"paste contents of file", and so forth. 
> 
> You could bind the paste menu to right-click; select, move around, 
> right-click would have all the same options as select, right-drag. You'd
> have to change the mouse pointer to the DnD shaped window thing to indicate 
> visually that the context menu you were seeing applied to the selection, not 
> to the icon you just right-clicked on.

OK, how about this - I want to move a bunch of files to a folder I'm about
to create. I select a bunch of files, I go to the destination window, I
right click to make a folder, but oh no! My familiar right-click menu is
gone, and all my options are not available!

On the other hand, if when there was an active and relevant selection, the
context menu got new entries, or a submenu "Paste as    |>" (that's a
"submenu" arrow, sorry - note the lack of ellipsis) to contain the new
entries, well, that I would like. But make sure the right click menu for
*everything* has a "paste" when appropriate. I'm just thinking, if you
select a bunch of files in gmc, and paste into gnome-terminal, it should
insert the filenames.

> BTW, I was wrong about wm2 making the pointer disappear - as you said, it was 
> just with gnome-terminal.

But there's no reason why that kind of thing must stop there. :) We can
have mouse hiding on *everything*!

Tim "over zealous" Allen