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

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

If you are going to CC the usability list out of nowhere it might help to
explain what you are talking about and point to a reference in the mailing
list archives for those of us not already on your mailing list.

For anyone else who was baffled and bemused here is a link to the relvant
thread
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/nautilus-list/2005-April/msg00006.html

On Wed, 6 Apr 2005, Markus Bertheau wrote:

> Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 13:44:00 +0200
> From: Markus Bertheau <twanger bluetwanger de>
> To: bryan cole <bryan cole uklinux net>
> Cc: usability gnome org, nautilus-list gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Re: DragNDrop to an unopened folder (without
>     springs) and a nice accessibility side-effect
>
> В Пнд, 04/04/2005 в 21:59 +0100, bryan cole пишет:
> > On Mon, 04 Apr 2005 10:11:55 +0900, Ryan McDougall wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > There is a nice solution in MacOSX where a folder opens if you hover over
> > > it, however such a method may be patented.

As far as I can remember Windows does something very similar, or at least
the tree in the file manager expands if you hover over a node for long
enough.

It is a shame that American software patents could be allowed to
potentially cripple Gnome worldwide.

> I think it's fairly complicated to press a mouse button while you are
> already holding another one, and not only for people with disabilities.

Gnome needs to move towards needing only a single click, so that we have
the potential to use gnome in palmtop devices and kiosk without needing to
massively rewrite things.

The alternatives are to drag and drop one directory at a time, or to
cut and paste the files rather than dragging them so there are
fallbacks for those who cannot comfortably use drag and drop (but still
that is not an excuse to deliberately make it inaccessible, accessibilty
is about making things work better for _everyone_).

> > Is this covered by the Apple patent? I would have thought this method is
> > impossible on a Mac, having only a single mouse button.
> >
> > I would have thought anything which requires an enforced pause in work (to
> > wait for a folder to open) will soon annoy users.

Depends on the timing.  Tooltips require a pause, having them come up
immediately would be too annoying.  Similarly descending into a directory
too quickly would also be annoying.  If you get the timing right it should
work out alright.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan