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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Abstracting the Linux Desktop from the File-system
From:       Uno Engborg <uno () webworks ! se>
Date:       2002-12-05 0:04:41
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On Wednesday 04 December 2002 21:16, Ralph Gottesbuehren wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 4. Dezember 2002 20:22 schrieb Simon Edwards:
> > On Wednesday 04 December 2002 16:05, Michael Pye wrote:
> > > On Wednesday 04 December 2002 12:26 am, Elliott Martin wrote:
> > > > Until this thread got started, I didn't know I could have been
> > > > holding ctrl, shift and ctrl+shift to do this.  Maybe the little
> > > > popup menu should say "Copy Here (ctrl)", "Move Here (shift)", etc.?
> > >
> > > That's what I'm looking at doing.
> >
> > I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but in Photoshop at least
> > you have a lot of direct manipulation going on, most of which can be
> > modified with the help of modifier keys. Photoshop doesn't use any
> > popups, but when you are dragging or working on something it just tells
> > you in the its status bar "Ctrl to resize, Alt to move" etc, or for Konq
> > "Ctrl to move, Alt to link" etc. I think this would be a good solution
> > for Konq. Simple in the simple case, but still providing a way for people
> > to learn or be reminded (non-intrusively too).
> >
> > Use the status bar people!  ;-)
> >
> > cheers,
>
> 1st:
>
> Imagine, you drag an icon from a konqui-window to the desktop.
> then a message in konqui's status bar appears, right? (the "from"-location)
>
> what would happen, when you do it backwards. where does the message then
> appear?
>
> 2nd:
>
> photoshop is an app in an own window, so the status bar is always visible
> while you use the app and it's ONE status bar. how do you want do do that
> in a whole DE? think of overlapping windows and such things...
>
> i'd prefer a solution bundled with the mouse pointer, that's where the
> user's visual focus is attempted to. and i'd prefer a one-hand-solution.
> (too lazy to use the mouse with my right hand and hold down keys with my
> left) btw, think of people with only one hand (i'm not joking).


Perhaps we could introduce some sort of toggle mode for control keys to handle 
the one hand use problem. Anybody who knows how MacOS and Windows handles 
this?  This problem could  pop up in many other places and perhaps we should 
have a general solution that not only applied to konqueror.

The average user does MUCH more moving than copying
How many files have you copied this weak? As far as I can remember
I havn't copied a single one. If you don't count backups, but that is hardly
something that you do from the desktop with a file manager, but rather 
somthing that is done with some backup program as a cron job. Moving files on 
the other hand is somthing I do many times a day. E.g sorting files that I 
have got as mail attatchments into relevant folders, sorting images from
my digial camera etc.

Then we have linking. Just count the number of links you own , compare that 
too the number of files you own. I checked this for 10 users on systems that 
I admin. I found that the on average only 0.1% of the users files was links,  
My own figure was 0.17% and only about 10% of those links were created by me 
personally. The rest were made automagically by installation programs and 
make files. So if I was a representative user We could expect that only about 
0.0.1% of the files belonging to a certain user  are links.

So basically we put up a menu each time a user want to do moving, copying  or
linking and force him to make a choise. I guess that the answer  would be move 
in well over 90% of the cases, copy in a couple of percent of the cases, and 
almost never link.

So maybe I am more lazy than you, as I feel that it is terrybly awkward to 
have to have select the move menu item every time I move a file. If I have to 
use a ctrl key as well once or twice a weak it would be a little price to pay
to be allowed extreme lazyness the rest of the time.

That's why I wan't to remove the menu alltogether.  But I agree that we
need some visual cues near the mous when the command a command
key is pressed. That way the user will be sure that he pressed the right key 
combination.

Regards
Uno Engborg
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