unity-design team mailing list archive

[Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>]

Le mercredi 12 mai 2010 à 15:00 +0200, Jan-Christoph Borchardt a écrit :
> What about that? Are there any plans already to default to single
> click for opening files and folders in Ubuntu?
> 
> It is way more intuitive to open with just a single click and have the
> modifier for the less frequent use-case of selecting (multiple)
> elements.
> 
> Launcher icons are also activated by single click.
> 
> A reverse example: My mother always double clicks links in the browser
> – regardless how often I tell her that it is not necessary. Muscle
> memory and habit is just too strong. Regarding that nowadays, people
> presumably spend more time in their web browser instead of their file
> manager, it would make sense to adopt the web standard for clicking.
> 
> On a sidenote: I know two kids who changed the click behavior to
> single click on their own. They see double clicking as just annoying.

I am strongly against this. I believe single-click usually works for
the web because usually most possible actions for an hyperlink are,
at the end of the day, variations of "open": open in another window,
open in another tab, save, etc.

In the case of files and folders, open is one among a large set of
semantically different actions. I frequently select a file to
delete it with the del button, or to see info on the status bar.

Launchers and hyperlinks are "buttons", whereas files and folders
and "selectable itens". There is a semantic difference.

Plus, single-click for opening would make dragging less intuitive.
Firefox allows dragging of hyperlinked things, but I always hesitate
before dragging an hyperlinked element, wondering if I'll be able
to drag it without activating the link.

Finally, it should be mentioned that Web 2.0 apps have been
blurring the line of what constitutes a "web standard" by
bringing desktop-like behavior. Take Google Docs, for example.