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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: RFC: Restricting mouse in popup menus
From:       Lubos Lunak <l.lunak () suse ! cz>
Date:       2005-05-19 11:36:42
Message-ID: 200505191336.42986.l.lunak () suse ! cz
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On Wednesday 18 of May 2005 18:14, Diego Moya (a.k.a. TuringTest) wrote:
> On 18/05/05, Maurizio Colucci <maurizio.colucci@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2005/5/17, Lubos Lunak <l.lunak@suse.cz>:
> > > In short, when a popup menu is open, the mouse movement is restricted
> > > only to the area of the popup - this allows navigating in the menus
> > > only using vertical movement and clicking.
> >
> > This improvement is not only good, it is a paradigm shifter. The
> > reason is that, with your idea, popup menu become so cheap
> > (cognitively) that it starts to make sense to _abolish_ the right
> > mouse button, relying on popup menus alone.
>
> I recently have had a similar conversation on the gnome-usability
> list. My concern was that in current interfaces the left mouse button
> is overloaded with both "selections" (performed with one click) and
> "actions" (usually with double-click).
>
> My proposal was to change the paradigm so that the left button always
> selects, and the right button has a popup menu similar to that of
> yours, with one default action under the mouse and the other commands
> being shown only when dragging.
>
> > I'll explain myself better. Imagine a listbox, such as the one in
> > konqueror file browser. Currently, left-clicking on a listbox item
> > executes the default action (select or open), whereas right-clicking
> > gives more options (shows the popup menu). As we know, this creates
> > major discoverability problems (people do not try to right-click). The
> > obvious solution would be to make the popup menu appear when you click
> > the LEFT mouse button, but then it becomes too expensive to execute
> > the common action. With your technique, however, it is no more
> > expensive. Imagine: you left-click, the popup menu appears, and the
> > mouse is positioned on the default action. So, another click executes
> > it. If you don't like the default action, you can move much more
> > easily due to the vertical constraint.

 I don't think my patches have any significant impact on this. You can easily 
even now do press->select->release. Navigation in single-level context popups 
is usually not that difficult.

> My solution would activate the action on the first click: you
> right-click, and if you release it the default action is executed. To
> activate a different action you right-click, drag the mouse, then the
> popup menu appears, and when you release it the command under the
> mouse is selected.
>
> This way the must hated "double-click" syndrome could be avoided. Have
> you ever seen users double-clicking a link in the browser? That's
> because normal (i.e. non programmers) users associate "double click"
> with "activate". With my proposed interface, left click will always
> mean "select" and right click will be "action", everything with a
> single click.

 People do actions noticeably more often than just select, if I'm not 
mistaken, so they probably wouldn't be very happy to right-click all the 
time. Moreover, I personally have doubts about double-click replaced with 
compulsory press->select->release in menus being an improvements.

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
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