Re: Icons during dragging (should have text part IMHO)

[Fabio Gomes <bugtraq gs2 com br>]

> 3) Icons are dragged "behind" cursor "on a string"
>    What I mean with this ist that if you click and drag an icon 
>    rather quickly, as you drag it along, it lags behind the cursor
>    often twenty or more pixels, depending on speed of dragging.
>    It feels as if the icon was dragged along on a string or rubber
>    band behind the cursor. 
> 
>    This makes handling icons slightly less direct than I would 
>    like. Ideally I think the icon should stick like glue to the
>    cursor. I don't know if that can be done on X11.
> 
>    Windows e.g. has less feedback, but it "feels" more direct to me,
>    which might be a direct result of the cursor *never* leaving 
>    the icon when dragging.

More things to add here (many are non-nautilus issues): (I'm using GNOME
2.6)

1. If you move things around within the same folder (ie. Desktop), when
you drop the icon, it lands at the wrong position: one pixel to the left
and one pixel below where the floating icon was. Note that "Keep
Aligned" is disabled here. You can try dragging an icon and dropping
exactly at the same position it was before. It will move.

2. When you drag an icon, it gets in the way, preventing you from seeing
where you are dropping. If you are moving a big icon (ie. a thumbnail)
to a small one (a folder), you must guess where the folder is. When I do
this, I often drag the icon away to see where the folder is and memorize
where I will drop. In Windows, this problem is solved with shading. The
floating icon is shaded, allowing you to see through it. Current Windows
versions have actual translucency, but older versions did the trick by
drawing 50% of the pixels of the icon (checkerboard), making it look
translucent. This is also an issue in GTK+ TreeView when dragging rows
away. They take too much space and you see nothing below them. Maybe the
translucency is not possible to implement now in X, but the
pseudo-translucency (checkerboard) is.

3. When you drag over a place where you cannot drop, GNOME gives no
indication of that. If you drop on an illegal place, the icon flies back
in an animation. In Windows, when you drag over an illegal place, the
mouse cursor changes to a (/) (like "no parking") sign. This is more
productive and more transparent to the user. The cursor used when
dragging over legal places is the standard arrow.
CORRECTION: After analyzing better the behavior of GNOME in this area, I
noticed that there *is* feedback. The cursor changes to the infamous
"right angle", but without the arrow. See the table below.

4. In GNOME, the drag and drop can only be cancelled through the
keyboard, by pressing ESC. In windows, you can cancel by clicking
another mouse button when dragging. This is also true in rubberbanding,
for both desktops.

5. Drag and drop between workspaces is currently impossible. Currently,
you can drag over a task list button and wait until the corresponding
window is raised. The same behavior could be implemented in the
Workspace Switcher and Show Desktop button.

6. There is a killer feature in MS Windows drag and drop: you can
Alt+Tab while dragging. Very productive.

7. Regarding the meaning of the Right Angle cursor in Nautilus, I think
I (duh) understand it: it means "move". If you hold Ctrl (to copy), it
changes to a similar cursor with a plus sign instead of the arrow. If
you hold Alt, it changes to a question sign. There are similar cursor in
MS Windows for the same purposes, but they respect the current theme.

These are the drag-and-drop cursors in GNOME (or X?):
 _
|\  Right angle with arrow: move. Should use the standard cursor arrow
instead of this.
 _
|?  Right angle with question sign: Pop up a menu 
 _
|   Empy right angle: You cannot drop here. Should use something more
meaningful. This cursor is completely ambiguous. Windows uses a "no
parking" sign.
 _ 
|+  Right angle with a plus sign: copy. Windows uses the standard arrow
with a plus sign inside a square [+] besides it. The image is the same
as the plus sign from their tree view.

Should we collect and consolidate all the ideas from this thread, file
the bugs in the right places and forward them to appropriate mailing
lists? I would love to do this, but I have no time. :(

-- 
Fabio Gomes de Souza <fabio gs2 com br> (+55 81 9132-1845)

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