Menus abuse List white space

[Evolve]

I've noticed that several menus do not respect LMB on List white space (Main Menu, Status Bar, Breadcrumb Bar, Toolbar). If one of those menus is open and you click on any item in List it works correctly performing a normal LMB click on that item. But if you click on white space in List it doesn't perform a normal LMB click on white space (deselect all the items). They all should stop abusing List white space as if it was their personal closing button.

Ap5qhILCAS.gif (50.26 KiB) Viewed 2105 times

PS
The List should only preserve the selection when it loses focus, for instance, when you focus Address Bar which BTW is broken the same way but should be fixed in opposite direction.
It should not only preserve the selection when clicking on white but also when clicking on any item.

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PS2
Maybe this should be tweakable when to preserve selection and when not to
;0 = dont preserve, 1 = switch from another window, 2 = after losing focus, 4 = bars menus, 8 = context menu
ListPreserveSelection=2
One thing I'm sure about is that when it does preserve selection, it should do it on any click in list, not just on white space. Explicit click on white is no different than explicit click on an item.

[admin]

I almost thought I had to give up my elegant solution and roll back to the clumsy one. But then I tested File Explorer (Win 8.1) and it behaves exactly almost the same: the selections are not removed when clicking on white while a menu is showing. However, clicking on a group of selections works differently.

PS: Tested Win 10 File Explorer, it's the same.

PS 2: Having spent 5 minutes with File Explorer now, I'm shocked about how bad this app is. How can companies let their staff use this thing? It's like throwing money out of the window with both arms.

[Evolve]

Those companies are exercising their right to make a bad business decision and lose their own money. Plus, if Explorer wasn't that bad there wouldn't be such a gap (abyss even) between it and XY and switching wouldn't be that appealing. Forget about Explorer, I only used it for the demonstration purpose to better illustrate what I mean.

[Evolve]

Code: Select all

v23.60.0008 - 2022-09-10 14:26
    * List: Focusing the list by clicking one of many selected items now preserves that 
      multiple selection. Previously only the clicked element was selected, the other 
      selections were lost. The new behavior is broadly the same as in File Explorer.

Clicking on unselected items should also preserve the selection then. Compare to Explorer .gif

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[admin]

Right. Next beta.

[Evolve]

Almost there, you forgot refocusing from the Address Bar and from the Tree. Same stuff, it preserves the selection in 2 out of 3 cases (white space and selected items) but loses it when clicking on unselected ones.

[admin]

On purpose. I like it better like this. When I click on an item it shall be selected (unless the click is just closing a menu).

[Evolve]

Well it should either preserve all 3 or none, also something weird with Ctrl going on, not always working.

PS It doesn't work the way you're describing, it shall drop the selection and re-select what you're clicking on instead.

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[Evolve]

Here is my vision

Current behavior

current.png (14.94 KiB) Viewed 1952 times

Should be one of these instead

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suggestion2.png (10.89 KiB) Viewed 1952 times

[admin]

Nice graphics!

But I still like it the way it is. Feels natural to me.

[Evolve]

One last question. Can you please add a tweak to regulate this table?

[admin]

Let's see how it goes. These are some radical things that affect app functionality at a very basic level. Don't want to blow everything up.

[Evolve]

I think I know what's going on here and why this anomaly exists. What's happening is you are trying to turn LMB into a defective version of RMB w/o a menu by synchronizing their selection patterns while forgetting why such a weird pattern for RMB exists in the first place.

The reason selection holds when you RMB one of selected items is because the actions in the menu will affect all these selected items.
The reason selection drops when you RMB an unselected item and the item gets selected instead is because the actions in the menu will affect only this newly selected item.

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This is why there is (and should be) an asymmetry between LMB and RMB. This weird selection pattern makes perfect sense for RMB and zero sense for LMB that doesn't have neither a menu nor actions.

[admin]

[Evolve]

So you're OK with turning LMB into a parody of RMB?