On Friday 28 January 2011 19:48:36 Sven Burmeister wrote:
Am Freitag, 28. Januar 2011, 19:38:35 schrieb John Andersen:
I tend to agree that far from being "intuitive" the plus is the least understood part of the file management interface. Everybody from every background understands control-click or shift-click, but the plus is just out of place and not found any where else on any platform.
Sorry, but that's complete bollocks! What you claim is that a user without any knowledge regarding a computer is more likely to know that CTRL+click selects multiple items compared to finding out that clicking on the "+" does so.
And even if you tell him, your claim would be that learning CTRL+click = selecting is easier although there no logic to it and you have to remember the name of the key since it might also be ALT which is nearby. All that according to you is easier than learning "+" = add to selection and "-" = substract from selection.
Nobody will ever guess that CTRL+click does multiple selections, simply because there is no logic behind that combination. It's only discoverable by chance, no hints, nothing.
The "+" is visible which makes it a lot easier to discover in the first place, it is click-able, i.e. you do not even need to know that you can combine keys leaving alone remembering how that key was named, it mediates its purpose by a symbol, i.e. "+" = add, it signals that it does have a functionality by appearing, i.e. attracting your attention and thus increases the likelihood that the user will just try to click on it.
It detracts from usability, a leads to accidents as its easy to accidents as a accidental click selects files/folders that can get deleted/moved when you scroll them out of view while failing to notice the Plus is selected.
The space used for the "+" is a lot smaller than the rest of the UI, so chances are that if you really hit that spot accidentally it is a lot more likely that you click on a file and execute it, e.g. a script which might ddo some harm - so following your logic there should be no clicks at all without having to press an extra button.
Further you assume that users fail to notice that they clicked on a file, they might as well fail to notice that they pressed a key. And even if they did - you also assume that they fail to notice when deleting (since anything else is non-destructive) that the list of files they get asked to delete is different from what they want to delete? You might as well win the lottery.
It really feels like you just wanted to make a point because of some hard feelings regarding KDE4 stuff.
Sven
I dont think that is a fair comment really this version of KDE 4.5.5 seems prety good there are a few little glitches here and there certain things that i would like to see made a user choice instead of it's there like it or lump it . Still the complete address book thing is dire i needed to update a contact today and no way could i enter an address , this is an important application i need to manage several hundred addresses and it is hard going the way things are but still KDE 4.5.5 seems quite decent now compared with the former versions in the 4.x.x line .. Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.7-0.7-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.5.5 (KDE 4.5.5) "release 1" 21:53 up 4 days 5:26, 4 users, load average: 0.39, 0.32, 0.27 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org