https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=399962
Nate Graham <n...@kde.org> changed:
What |Removed |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Status|REPORTED |RESOLVED
CC| |n...@kde.org
Resolution|--- |INTENTIONAL
--- Comment #1 from Nate Graham <n...@kde.org> ---
Full disclosure: I'm a double-click user itself, so I feel your pain and
understand where you're coming from.
---
I don't think we can or should change the default. It's true that other desktop
OSs use double-click and that we are inconsistent with them. However, we are
consistent with mobile OSs and the web.
But the better argument is conceptual: what *should* the optimal setting be?
Ideally, it would be single-click, for the following reasons:
- It's what very new users expect. Most things are single-clickable (menus,
toolbar buttons, panel icons, etc), but when icons in the file manager are not,
it seems random.
- Double-click requires a certain minimum level of mousing skill. Older people,
children, and people with disabilities or illnesses that causs their hands to
shake have great difficulty double-clicking.
- Double-click introduces uncertainty regarding what to double-click and what
to single-click. We've all seen people double-click on their panel icons,
toolbar icons, web links, etc. The distinction may be logical to you and me,
but it's totally lost on most people. They have no idea why some things require
a double-click and reflexively double-click everything just to be sure.
- It's impossible for touch. You cannot properly double-click on touch, period.
The emergence of convertible laptops that allow touch input all but requires
the retirement of double-click as a UI tool.
So yeah, it's gotta stay single-click, at least here on the KDE level. Distros
can always override it to meet their users' needs--as I recommended and got
done for Kubuntu starting with 18.04, since we made the decision to target
switchers from other platforms who are familiar with double-click.
---
However, this is not to say that the current single-click UX is perfect. Far
from it: it needs some improvement to realize its potential and to convert
people like you and me to use it. Here are the ways I think we can and should
improve this:
- Rename and re-organize the applicable KCM. Instead of ["Workspace" category]
> Desktop Behavior > Workspace, it should be ["Behavior" category] > General.
People would then find it much more easily. The meaning of the word "workspace"
lost on everyone who's not a Plasma developer. This falls under
https://phabricator.kde.org/T8871
- For everything that uses single-click, add a dedicated "selection mode" that
can be entered using a visible UI element. In this mode, a single-click on an
icon selects it, just like in popular mobile OSs. This would be vastly more
user-friendly than clicking on those tiny green selection markers (slow,
requires precision mousing skill) or ctrl+clicking (not discoverable, too easy
to destroy the selection of your finger accidentally un-presses the ctrl key).
This has been bouncing around in my mind for a while, and I will file a task
for it.
- (maybe) start renaming rather than open the file if the filename/label is
clicked. Would need a lot of thought.
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