I’m sorry, but then why all the discussion? I brought up KDE / Dolphin
in my second post.
sorry, that was about 20h and like 30 mails ago in this thread alone :D birdseye perspective is not so easy anymore..
Conscious: good idea with indicating dragabilty ;)
Jan-Christoph: yeah, iPhone is a good example for what i'm about to suggest:
to follow the thought of creating an intuitive, consistent and thereby easily depth-discoverable interface, we need to think dumb sometimes. "smart" is then the product of intuitive thinking, not of complicated pirouettes of mind.
how do i know that what i am touching can be moved? how do i know that i'm selecting it, not activating or focusing it (zoom/scale/spacial highlighting)? altogether: how do i know what i can do with an object, without previously knowing the object?
we use little indications overlayed with the respective representation of the object, be it a symbol or the object itself.
such indications or indicators can be: a) mouse cursor shape *hand (open in a drag and drop zone, clutching if something is being held/dragged)
*finger (to indicate that i'm about to add to selection upon click) *arrow (color: default/none for "go, open, run", blue for "info layer upon click"...) *bubble (for indicating the ability of immediate textual communication)
*text cursor (type without letting any mouse pointer get in the way of your focus) *[...] u name it!
b) status bar information c) tooltips aka mouse-over info d) pointer-focus-oriented morphing of symbols/icons/objects
e) [...] u name it!
just brainstorming. i think i have always been quite good at thinking dumb ;)