Re: File/Folder selection area in list mode.

[John Keller <gnome johnkeller com>]

oleksandr korneta wrote:
> lucky me. I just subscribed for this list with intent to discuss the 
> same annoying selection model and found that I'm not alone.
>
> on 01/22/2009 08:30 PM markbl wrote:
> > Nandox7 wrote:
> > > Is it possible to change the selection detection area when in list mode
> > > from the all File/Folder row to only the text in the columns?
> > > Basically what you see in the windows file browser, the reason is that for
> > > example if you try and drag/drop or copy/paste something to a folder that
> > > is open and that contains many folders you can't if you only have folders
> > > listed, you need to scroll down to an area that has files and drop the
> > > content to copy there. If not what you're copying ends up inside a folder.
>
> and notice, that this will not work if your list of folders is longer 
> than the height of the nautilus window.
>
> > I have just gone looking for a solution to this as well when I found this
> > post. I've come back to note a solution here which I just discovered myself
> > playing around. Switch your location bar to button view rather than text
> > view and then you can drop a file/dir directly on the button.
>
> I hate that button view mode to start with, and can't imagine why would 
> anyone use it. The idea that I have to switch to another view mode just 
> in order to drop a file into current folder is kinda strange. And taking 
> into account that I have it in a text mode all the time, having to 
> switch in a middle of the process of dragging files will definitely 
> drive me nuts.
>
> Anyhow, this kind of behavior made me completely give up the hope to be 
> able to use drag'n'drop while in nautilus. Now I completely switched to 
> Ctrl+C/Ctrl+X/Ctrl+V although this method also works strangely sometimes.
>
> More irritating than that is the fact that all folder-related context 
> menu items disappear (as "create a new folder" and folder related 
> extensions like "open location in terminal") when you click on a file. 
> However in "list view" mode you simply cannot avoid clicking on a file.
>
> Selecting the group of files by drawing a window with a mouse cursor 
> doesn't work either (yeah, yeah I know Shift+click), because in order to 
> initiate that window you have to click on the open space. And guess 
> what, there is no such space unless your list of files is shorter than 
> actual nautilus window.
>
> So what I'm trying to say here that in "list view" nautilus pretty much 
> resembles MS windows file explorer, but the latter is actually usable in 
> that mode, while nautilus is not. And all it takes is to change the 
> selection detection area.

You might want to check out this bug:
  http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94618

It has a patch waiting for the maintainers' review that fixes the 
columns for right clicks and lasso selection. Next step would be 
changing the drop target to allow dropping objects into a Nautilus list 
view full of folders.

- John