I have to admit that I do love Dolphin’s single click feature…
…except for one thing: it happens regularly
that I don’t notice that there has been an item selected from a previous activity (e.g. when going up one folder, the last used folder is selected),
then I scroll down for some files to select for deletion/moving (sticking to my example: having not noticed that that single folder was still selected),
then removing/moving too many items (including my folder that I did not want to move/delete)
(Same happens if I use Dolphin’s spacebar selection mode).
How can I avoid this? The only thing that came to my mind is pressing ESC or clicking outside of any item before each selection. This sounds awkward and I think that KDE has a much better solution that I am not aware of.
I’ve been struggling with this too, especially when working through lots of files renaming some of them. (The file gets re-selected after being renamed even if you explicitly click the empty area around the file.) I guess clicking ESC before the next selection is the only option…
It would be nice if you could have a key to do exclusive selection, just like with double-click. Maybe ALT+click could be an option if this is implemented?
Best rule of thumb since Dolphin will ONLY delete items in the folder you are in is to left click a blank spot so everything is unhilited, then select the items you want to actually delete.
that I don’t notice that there has been an item selected from a previous activity
This could be similarly avoided if activated/opened items would only be underlined instead of selected. After all, a user that activates an item doesn’t necessarily want that item to also become selected.
The file gets re-selected after being renamed even if you explicitly click the empty area around the file.
IMO this can be considered a bug unless I am missing some advantage of this.
The only issue left then would be a user first explicitly selecting an item and then forgetting about it. But since this would be an explicit user action, I don’t think many users would do this by mistake. And I don’t really see a way to avoid this that wouldn’t harm the normal workflow.
Side-notes: 1. The status bar always tells you how many items are currently selected. 2. Drawing a selection rectangle to select an item will also clear the previous selection in the process.
I welcome everyone to help with any of the points above.
@felixernst is correct if I click a folder to view it’s contents when I click to go back it should be unselected, same if I go to rename an item once it’s renamed and I hit enter to accept the new name it should be unselected.
Another idea: unselect everything when entering Selection mode (i.e. when pressing space bar).
Since I’m a keyboard junkie, my workaround is to press Escape key before selecting (if I don’t forget to do so), which also deselects everything.
