[Usability] Bounding Box Selection in the HIG

[Joachim Noreiko <jnoreiko yahoo com>]

Hi.
The topic of bounding box selection selection came up
recently on nautilus and someone on this list told me
I should file a bug for the HIG, because it doesn't
specify behaviour for this when both shift and ctrl
are held down (section 10, 'Bounding Box Selection').

I've been thinking about this issue, and something
else has occurred to me.

Bounding box selection behaves differently depending
on the nature of what is selected. It seems to me
there are two kinds of stuff to select: discrete and
separate objects (eg nautilus, inkscape), and
continuous (eg GIMP). (I realise GIMP isn't really
continuous, it's many separate pixels, but it seems
continuous to the user, and I'm about to explain why.
'contiguous' might be a better word to use)

This difference is apparent when it comes to adding /
toggling / subtracting from the existing selection.

Nautilus uses the same modifier for all three types of
behaviour. This is not peculiar -- I have looked at
Windows Explorer and OS X Finder, and they do the
same.
This is because the items being selected are clearly
separated. If you want to add some, it's easy to avoid
touching those that are already selected. And vice
versa, it's easy to only affect those you want to
remove without touching unselected ones.

Now let's look at GIMP.
If you want to subtract from a selection, you
typically have to begin dragging *outside* the
selected area. Otherwise, you run the risk of being
one or two pixels too far in. Because the elements are
small and there is no gap between them, you have to
overshoot. The same applies for adding: I can't aim
precisely enough to be on the border of the selection.
I have to overlap the box of what I want to add with
the box of what is already selected.
Here, subtract and add must have be separate
behaviours and they are: on GIMP they have different
modifiers.
there is no modifier for toggle, but there is one for
intersect.

My question is: should the HIG take into account this
difference between discrete and contiguous objects?
Should I file a second bug for this, or include this
with the ctrl+shift issue in a single bug report?

Joachim


		
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