Re: Singe click selection with checkboxes

[Christian Becke <christianbecke web de>]

Am Mittwoch, den 14.09.2005, 13:00 +0200 schrieb Kristoffer Lundén:
> If we leave any key modifiers aside for the moment, then it would be
> two possible cases:
> 1. Rubberband adds, left click unmarks all
> 2. Rubberband toggles, left click unmarks all
> 
> 1. Might be somewhat easier to understand, as it has totally
> predictable behaviour. Forces complete startover at mistakes.
> 2. Slightly more complex, however the behaviour should be totally
> predictable once you've done it. Allows refining selections without
> starting over.
> 
> I'm personally in favour of # 2, but if someone has strong reasons why
> not, I'm listening. :)

I would really love to see #2 implemented, but I'm afraid changing
rubberband selections to add to a current selection will get users into
trouble.
Imagine a user opens a folder with a lot of items in it, so that it gets
a scrollbar. The user then selects some items using the rubberband,
scrolls the selected items out of the viewport and forgets about it.
Then, he want's to make another rubberband selection and delete these
items. Poor user didn't know that the behaviour of the selection
changed, and instead of deleting the items he wanted to delete, he also
deletes the previously selected items he had already forgotten about.
So changing this behaviour must be announced VERY carefully.

Maybe a timeout for a rubberband selection could solve this issue, but
you had to know how long it takes the average user to forget about a
rubberband selection he made, then.
Another solution would be to indicate visually that there is a current
selection, e.g. by changing the mouse pointer.


Regards,

Christian