Query Drag - right instead of middle Click

[Andy Owen-3]

In the HIG there is a section on the Query Drag:
http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/input-mouse.html.en#drag-drop-query


10.1.3.1.2. Query Drag
Allow the user to drag objects with the middle button , or with Alt left
button. Pop up a menu when the mouse button is released, offering the
choice of Copy, Move and Link (or whichever subset of those actions is
available), and Cancel. Dragging in this way is known as query drag
because it prompts the user before changing anything.


I'm proposing that we change it to a right button drag. This is how I
see it:

1) On a mouse with a wheel (especially one of those new horizontal
scrolling tilt wheels), it is actually quite difficult to do this
operation.
2) It might be useful to support the scroll wheel during drag operations
in the future (e.g. dragging a selection in a document, using the
workspace switcher when dragging a file)
3) There is already a strong association with right click and popup
menus. If I were to guess which button to use to drag a file and be
presented with a menu, then based on the fact that right clicking a file
brings up a menu, I would guess that a right click drag would do so.

On the negative side:
4) This raises the question of what to do when the right mouse button is
depressed, should we show the context menu, or wait a bit to see if they
are dragging? (waiting for mouse up isn't ok, because of 5)
5) I can imagine that there are people who will use a right click drag
to select an item in the context menu (e.g. right mouse down on a file,
then while keeping the button down, mouse over the menu item you want
and release)

In spite of these issues, I think it would be quite possible to find a
solution which doesn't surprise you. I haven't played with any mockups
or anything, but I'd imagine that if there was a (fairly generous)
timeout on the button down event (which also brought up the context menu
- possibly after a (fairly short) delay, and if the cursor leaves a
'certain area' before that timeout then it is a drag operation and the
context menu disappears. Otherwise it is a context menu operation. The
'certain area' would be a bit bigger than the context menu, and maybe a
little bit bigger than the thing being dragged.

Does anyone have any further thoughts or comments?

Andy


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[Calum Benson]

On 24 Jul 2008, at 14:09, Andy Owen wrote:

> In the HIG there is a section on the Query Drag:
> http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/input-mouse.html.en#drag-drop-query
>
> I'm proposing that we change it to a right button drag.

That's what it always used to be, but then Nautilus decided to do it  
differently (I forget why) and everyone followed suit...

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
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mailto:calum.benson@...            GNOME Desktop Team
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Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems


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[Christian Neumair-2]

Am Donnerstag, den 24.07.2008, 15:01 +0100 schrieb Calum Benson:

> On 24 Jul 2008, at 14:09, Andy Owen wrote:
>
> > In the HIG there is a section on the Query Drag:
> >
> http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/input-mouse.html.en#drag-drop-query
> >
> > I'm proposing that we change it to a right button drag.
>
> That's what it always used to be, but then Nautilus decided to do it  
> differently (I forget why) and everyone followed suit...

I read through the old Nautilus ChangeLogs, and found an entry back in
2001:

2002-11-28  Alexander Larsson  <alexl@...>
        (...)
        * libnautilus-private/nautilus-icon-container.c:
        query-drag with middle button. Open context menus faster.
(#46276)
        Patch by Marco Pesenti Gritti.

The gist of the associated bug report [1] (quotation by Alex Larsson):

“For two-button mice Alt-drag is already availible. Query-dragging is a
seldom used feature that should not impede on usage of the context
menu.”

best regards,
 Christian Neumair


[1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46276

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[Calum Benson]

On 24 Jul 2008, at 22:21, Christian Neumair wrote:

> The gist of the associated bug report [1] (quotation by Alex Larsson):
>
> “For two-button mice Alt-drag is already availible. Query-dragging  
> is a
> seldom used feature that should not impede on usage of the context
> menu.”


Thanks for digging that up-- rings a bell now.  Seems like the switch  
certainly wasn't taken lightly at the time, although there's never any  
harm in revisiting such decisions from time to time in light of other  
changes (such as the near-ubiquity of scroll wheels nowadays compared  
to six or seven years ago, as Andy mentioned).

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum.benson@...            GNOME Desktop Team
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[Andy Owen-3]

Is there a Windows or OSX equivalent? Can anyone test to see what they
do? (I'll try to remember to test on my Windows machine at work on
Monday).

I've kind of gone about this the way I don't really like (theorizing
about what would be best, rather than making a demo of both options and
doing an experiment on real people), partially because it is easier this
way and partially because I don't know how to set up a fair experiment
(if it really is a feature that users don't know about, then if you ask
a person to drag so it brings up a menu is a leading question as it
gives them the hint that such a feature actually exists)

While I agree that the context menu should get the biggest piece of cake
- part of me thinks that it is still possible to detect whether a user
is attempting a right click drag (e.g. if you right click drag from one
side of the screen to the other, then you probably aren't wanting the
context menu). Another possible implementation would be to just show the
context menu like we do already, but if they release the right mouse
button on a valid drop target, then hide the context menu and show the
query drag menu at the new location.

(oh, and thanks for finding the bug report Christian)

Andy

On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 11:56 +0100, Calum Benson wrote:

> On 24 Jul 2008, at 22:21, Christian Neumair wrote:
>
> > The gist of the associated bug report [1] (quotation by Alex Larsson):
> >
> > “For two-button mice Alt-drag is already availible. Query-dragging  
> > is a
> > seldom used feature that should not impede on usage of the context
> > menu.”
>
>
> Thanks for digging that up-- rings a bell now.  Seems like the switch  
> certainly wasn't taken lightly at the time, although there's never any  
> harm in revisiting such decisions from time to time in light of other  
> changes (such as the near-ubiquity of scroll wheels nowadays compared  
> to six or seven years ago, as Andy mentioned).
>
> Cheeri,
> Calum.
>

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[Calum Benson]

On 25 Jul 2008, at 16:25, Andy Owen wrote:

> Is there a Windows or OSX equivalent? Can anyone test to see what they
> do? (I'll try to remember to test on my Windows machine at work on
> Monday).

Windows does query-drag on the right button, but (as one of the  
comments in the bug report alludes to) they do this by waiting for the  
mouse-up event to decide whether a query-drag has happened or (if not)  
the context menu should be shown.  I've never found this a major  
distraction personally, but it's certainly an inconsistency compared  
to how regular menus work (shown immediately on the mouse-down event).

There's no real equivalent on OS X.

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
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mailto:calum.benson@...            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             [phone]

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[Andy Owen-3]

> Windows does query-drag on the right button, but (as one of the  
> comments in the bug report alludes to) they do this by waiting for the  
> mouse-up event to decide whether a query-drag has happened or (if not)  
> the context menu should be shown.  I've never found this a major  
> distraction personally, but it's certainly an inconsistency compared  
> to how regular menus work (shown immediately on the mouse-down event).

So it doesn't distract me either, but there is also an alternative
method of using the context menu where you hold down the right mouse
button and release to select the item (so it is a single right click
drag). I don't know anyone who actually does this, but I've never done a
usability study in my life, so maybe it is common in some groups.

On the other hand, I think you can make a fairly strong case for
removing this method of accessing the context menu since the cost of
accidentally releasing the right mouse button (which I can imagine would
be more common given that it is a less common action requiring moving
the mouse while holding a button with a weaker finger) on a context menu
is a lot higher than an accidental release on a query drag (since the
menu that is displayed will always have a 'Cancel' option, and in the
case of the context menu, you will have no cue as to which option you
just accidentally selected or how to go about undoing it).

>
> There's no real equivalent on OS X.
>
> Cheeri,
> Calum.
>

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[Liam R E Quin]

On Mon, 2008-07-28 at 22:20 +1000, Andy Owen wrote:
[...]
> So it doesn't distract me either, but there is also an alternative
> method of using the context menu where you hold down the right mouse
> button and release to select the item (so it is a single right click
> drag).
I've done that in most cases for some 20 years, probably because of
older UI systems that required it.  I doubt I'm alone, as it's the
more easily discovered way to use the pop-up menus.

Liam


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