Re: Mega patch to make spatial nautilus rock! [changing spatial button mapping]

[Jamie McCracken <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

On Mon, 2004-07-12 at 18:20, Ryan McDougall wrote:
> In the case of left-click=open, and middle-click=open-and-close-parent
> setup we currently have, we do so for discoverability reasons; that is
> because new users are likely to prefer to use only one button (the left
> button if the have windows experience), and many mice have to simulate
> the middle button with a simultaneous left+right click (a tricky
> operation *I* occasionally fail at). Therefore we map the most general
> purpose function (open in new window) to the most used button.
> 
> However, although open-in-new-window has the most uses, its often NOT
> the most used. That is the majority of use cases for any user is
> "drilling" in search of a single item, than therefore the most useful
> function is open-and-close-parent. I guess that about 90% of my usage is
> so, and that my usage pattern is not uncommon; therefore I will assume
> this is generally true among all users.
> 
> Next I will assume that users who are sufficiently sophisticated to
> change the preferences of their file manager, are sufficiently
> sophisticated enough to have discovered the middle button, and know how
> to effectively operate both buttons.
> 
> If my two above assumptions are correct, then swapping the left and
> middle button functions is a usability improvement since the most often
> used command is mapped to the easiest to operate button.
> 
> The above seems to me to be a pretty clear argument to allows some means
> (whether in GConf or pref GUI) to change the mouse button mapping. Do
> you agree?

yes but also for other reasons. Some notebook users who only have two
buttons (and dont emulate a third mouse button) have asked to change the
default button function too - indeed there are outstanding bugs in
bugzilla for this which my patch fixes -

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=145588
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=142419

jamie.




> 
> Cheers,
> Ryan
> 
>