Re: DragNDrop to an unopened folder (without springs) and a nice accessibility side-effect

["Kevin C. Krinke" <kckrinke opendoorsoftware com>]

On Mon, 2005-04-04 at 20:19 +0900, Ryan McDougall wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-04-04 at 12:48 +0300, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> > On Apr 4, 2005 12:55 PM, Ryan McDougall <NQG24419 nifty com> wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2005-04-04 at 10:19 +0300, Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> 
> > > Esc cancels the DnD and removes the selection from the clipboard.
> > 
> > Esc is nice, but tell that to the helpdesk worker who answers "press
> > esc" for the nth time when someone calls and says "how do I get rid of
> > this thing that follows my mouse?" (discoverability).
> 
> Consider the fact that the visible clipboard is a *feature* that lets
> people know they are carrying around a selection they never dropped. Are
> you surprised by the fact that the car keys you are carrying haven't
> disappeared from your pocket?
> 
> Also consider that the "Movable Clipboard" doesn't otherwise affect
> Nautilus by definition, so no special harm can be done by carrying
> around the icon.

I feel this is fundamentally wrong. The user should never get into a
situation where they are dragging around "a selection they never
dropped". See my suggestions below.

> > I thought you said that there would be one.
> 
> You misunderstood me, the popup dialogue is unneeded so should not be
> there. It should work exactly as Ctrl-V.

Actually instead of it acting exactly like CTRL+V perhaps it should act
as if you had middle-click-dragged the item. This solves the problem of
deciding whether or not the user used CTRL+C or CTRL+X to start the
process and they get the benefit of being able to symlink the file or
cancel the operation.

Now instead of pressing Esc to cancel the operation, while the user is
still dragging the icon around, they should be able to right-click to
cancel the operation.

So an example user session could be:

    1) left-click on a file and start dragging
    2) hover over a folder while still holding left-click
    3) folder is opened
    4) release left-click and the drag-menu pops up
        Move here
        Copy here
        Link here
        ---------
        Cancel

or

    1) left-click on a file and start dragging
    2) hover over a folder while still holding left-click
    3) folder is opened
    4) right-click while holding left-click, operation cancelled.


Now if all this is patented in some way and thing are implemented as you
suggest, I'd offer up another alternative...

    1) left-click on a file, 3sec, icon added to "clipboard"
    2) find the desired folder for the operation
    3) right-click|middle-click to have the drag-menu pop-up

Doing it this way ensures that the user isn't dragging around an icon
all the time. Eventually they will want to right-click something and the
drag-menu would pop up. (Perhaps the name of the file in the clipboard
should appear in the list.)

As one final suggestion... if the mouse is inactive for more than a
minute (or some such gconf-set timeout) the clipboard is automatically
cleared.

Anyways, that's my $0.02CAD.

-- 
Kevin C. Krinke <kckrinke opendoorsoftware com>
Open Door Software Inc.