Re: [Usability] Double-click in notification area?

[John Spray <jcs116 york ac uk>]

On Fri, 2004-08-27 at 12:46, Jamie McCracken wrote:
> The Nautilus option for single/double click should be a global gnome
> option so the file selector and other Gnome stuff responds to this
> setting.

I've recently written a patch[1] for file-roller to make it respect the
nautilus single vs. double click preference.  Although this behaviour is
my preference, I can certainly see how the single-click-only interface
could be more confusing/frightening to someone not so comfortable with
the softare.

One idea that occurred to me while I was working on file-roller was that
I could make it so that single clicks activated for folders, and
selected for files.  Rationale: when one "activates" a folder, one is
performing a navigation task.  This is harmless, and should be easy. 
What's more, one does it repetitively to navigate down a tree, which
makes double clicking particularly strenuous.  For files (or similarly
emails, news entries), however, the "activation" is a more serious
action: it often involves invoking a new program.

In the file chooser, the user is rarely going to wish to select folders
(apart from special case dialogs for opening folders like in
rhythmbox).  They're essentially navigation links rather than choosable
items.

Note that I'm of the "double clicking is an evil sin" school of thought,
but trying to make file-roller single-clicky opened my eyes somewhat to
the problems posed by the transition.

John

1. http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100927