Re: [Ayatana] Default to single click to open files and folders

[Sohail Mirza <mirzmaster@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, May 13, 2010 at 5:37 PM, Luke Morton <luke.morton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Nothing's lost, but learnt behaviours would have to change.

Changing learnt behaviours is easier said than done!

A cost of this change is the frustration of users who are accustomed to Windows' default behaviour at their workplace, or at home.  This is potentially a level of frustration equal to (or greater than) that of users fed up with double-clicking.  It's very easy to understate this cost, as you have done.

If indeed the cost of having users relearn file interaction is greater than the benefit of single-clicking, then it is not the right thing to do.

I would also like to point out that single-clicking was attempted by default in Windows 98 SE (or was it ME?).  You'll note that Microsoft abandoned that default setting very quickly (presumably because of the cost of having users relearn the behaviour involved in file manipulation).  Anecdotally, that "feature" annoyed just about everyone I know, including myself, and to no small degree.  Having nothing happen when you single click a file is, imho, far less annoying than having an application launch when you simply meant to select the file.

-- 
sfm