Re: [Usability] moving or copying when drag'n'dropping

[Mariano Suárez-Alvarez <msuarezalvarez arnet com ar>]

On Tue, 2007-02-27 at 11:09 -0600, Matthew Nuzum wrote:
> Hello, I'm paranoid about dragging files, because I never know what to
> expect. For example:
> 
> I just drug files from an archive in whatever program Gnome uses onto
> a network place. The dialog said "moving files..." which worried me.
> Fortunately, it only copied them.

Please find bugs against the specific apps.

> Sometimes when I drag and drop files from the desktop it moves them.
> For example, dragging an item to the trash, which makes sense, but it
> seems like other times this happens too. I'm not sure what the pattern
> is.
> 
> Often times it copies them. For example, copying files from my desktop
> to network places.
> 
> To further frustrate things, while it seems the common procedure for
> dragging is to copy, in Rhythmbox, it instead duplicates listings
> without duplicating files. This can be quite frustrating if you then
> try to delete the duplicate entries and instead completely trash your
> music files. The original entries are still present, but won't play
> because the music files are gone.
> 
> Things could be better if there is:
> a: standardization on what happens when you drag'n'drop
> b: communication or indication of what is going to happen when you
> drop (i.e. Windows shows an emblem indicating if the operation will
> copy, move or create a shortcut)

The HIG is quite specific about the interface of DnD. Cf.
<http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input.html#drag-drop>.
I'd imagine most developers would be happy to fix apps when problems are
reported.

> c: a standard and intuitive way to affect the default drag'n'drop action.

You want to be able to change what the default action is?

I'd hope we spend time first trying to get the default right.

> I'd also like to be able to control wither or not files get moved or
> copied. In XP you can drag with the right mouse button, and when
> dropping, get a choice to move, copy or create a shortcut. This suits
> me just fine, because the computer rarely knows what my intentions
> are. (i.e. duplicating an image file, moving files to a network share)
> 

Cheers,

-- m


-- 
Mariano Su�z-Alvarez
http://www.gnome.org/~mariano