Update click behavior in files

[marcoambrosini]

Single click: select
Double click: open

On touch devices, the behavior stays the same as current.

We noticed that most file managers work like this. Both on web interfaces an on the operating system level. It's especially useful to do multi-select operations when the target area is the whole row, as opposed to just the checkbox.

cc @nextcloud/designers

ref

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[marcoambrosini]

@SystemKeeper @nickvergessen could you please elaborate on the sad face? :)
We agreed in the design call that this would be useful, but we might have missed some reasons against this change.

[nickvergessen]

could you please elaborate on the sad face? :)

It's confused, not sad, but I used it as "uncomfortable".

It's especially useful to do multi-select operations when the target area is the whole row, as opposed to just the checkbox.

I get that, the thing is I mostly never use those operations. In 99% of the cases I just want to see the file in big/editor and not start a mass operation.

My biggest issue is (similar to the right click), that this makes the files list behave much different compared to all the other lists we have. Contacts, User list for admins, App list, etc.

Does this also apply to the grid layout?

[marcoambrosini]

In 99% of the cases I just want to see the file in big/editor and not start a mass operation.

That would be just 1 more click away

My biggest issue is (similar to the right click), that this makes the files list behave much different compared to all the other lists we have. Contacts, User list for admins, App list, etc.

This is a non-issue: we have files lists doing this everywhere and contacts apps not doing this anywhere. It's in everyone's muscle memory.

A good heuristic would be:
Is it useful to select several items and do operations with them in this particular list? → double click to open - 1 click to select
Is it only marginally useful? → single click to open - other strategy to select

"Clouds" are increasingly bigger than people's local storage, so a lot of users won't sync their entire data to the machine. For this reason, it's important to provide a solid UX in the web interface too when it comes to performing these operations, and this is a little obstacle that adds up.

The right click menu is important too, btw. Now it's sort of there as it triggers the actions open when we right-click, we just need to open the menu where the cursor is.

Does this also apply to the grid layout?

I'd say so yes

[marcoambrosini]

https://baymard.com/blog/users-double-click-online

[jancborchardt]

https://baymard.com/blog/users-double-click-online

From the article (which is from 2013):

August 2019 update: This user behavior is increasing and even more prevalent now than when this article was first published. However, this increase is mainly because of the mobile aspect “The user simply thinks their tab wasn’t registered” whenever the mobile site response is just slightly slow (as addressed further down the article).

So it seems that nowadays (further 5 years on from the update) it is more about performance and feedback, rather than expecting double click.

[skjnldsv]

@marcoambrosini is this still wanted ?

• desktop: click = select / double-click = open
• touch devices: tap = open?