unity-design team mailing list archive

["Scott E. Armitage" <launchpad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am also strongly against this. As Conscious User points out, hyperlinks,
launchers, and menu items are buttons that I press in order to do some
action, whereas icons represent files or folders, i.e. "physical" objects.
They are inherently different things. The last thing I want is for an
accidentally placed pointer to open some (potentially huge and RAM-eating)
file, which may need a (potentially huge and long-loading) application to
start.

-Scott

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 9:23 AM, Conscious User <conscioususer@xxxxxxx>wrote:

>
> 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.
>
>
>
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-- 
Scott Armitage, B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc. candidate
Space Flight Laboratory
University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies
4925 Dufferin Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T6