Re: [Usability]Middle mouse button in galeon

[Reinout van Schouwen <reinout cs vu nl>]

Hello Tommi,

On 21 Nov 2002, Tommi Komulainen wrote:

> I know, but I'd argue it's not pasting.  It's close, but not quite the
> same as pasting.  I can't really remember seeing any other program than
> mozilla/galeon to behave in such a way.  Granted, it's quite convenient,
> but still not pasting :)

Whatever it is called, that's besides the point. There are probably more
peculiarities in browsers that are specific to this kind of programs.

> I think it's also been suggested that this 'open pasted URL'
> functionality is removed and that you'd middle-click the 'New' button in
> the toolbar to achieve the same thing.

That suggestion seems purpose-defeating to me. You'd have to carefully aim
and click, at which point you could just as easily paste in the URL bar.
This is remeniscent of gedit where you could only drag a file to the Open
toolbar button, and not to the textarea, to open it. Bad luck if you chose
not to view that toolbar. IIRC this has been fixed in a recent gedit
release.

> I think in many cases the drop sensitive area is also around the drag
> starting point.  I'm not sure though, it's just a fuzzy feeling.

We'd probably need a user test to know this for sure, but the drag actions
I do myself are usually to another Nautilus window or to the trashcan,
which usually aren't near the starting point.

> That is true, but I'm not entirely convinced it's that bad.  Even if I
> know the gesture for closing the tab (down-right) I occasionally manage
> to perform it wrong.

If you, experienced galeon user, manage to perform gestures wrong
occasionally, how do you think the ratio of "well-performed" gestures
would be for casual users?

> I would think that performing it by accident has about the same
> probability than hitting Alt-F C.  Back/Forward/New

If that were true, you'd still have visual feedback when accidentally
hitting Alt-F C, giving the user a clue to what might have happened.
Gestures give no cue at all, apart from the cursor shape, but this in
itself is not enough to know what's going on.

> I guess it looks like gestures are just too controversial to be enabled
> by default after all.  Thanks for the feedback.  I was expecting a bit

Glad I could help.

regards,

-- 

Reinout van Schouwen			Artificial Intelligence student
email: reinout cs vu nl			mobile phone: +31-6-44360778
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