Ayatana Design

Drag and drop using the Launcher is difficult and counterintuitive

Bug #770073 reported by Nicolás Abel Carbone on 2011-04-25

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #727903: Spread, Window Management - XDnD directly to a window in the spread fails. Edit Remove

This bug affects 5 people

	Status	Importance	Assigned to
Ayatana Design	Invalid	Undecided	Unassigned
Unity	Incomplete	Low	Unassigned
unity (Ubuntu)	Incomplete	Low	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: unity

This is mainly an usability problem. Users expect to be able to copy or move files between folders by drag and drop between open instances of nautilus, using the launcher. However this is not simple, because, dragging a file to the launcher will not highlight the nautilus icon, and if going over the nautilus icon it will launch the preview of the folders, which are not interactive.
I attach a video showing the problem.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: unity 3.8.10-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,compiztoolbox,decor,gnomecompat,snap,mousepoll,grid,vpswitch,place,resize,regex,imgpng,wall,animation,session,move,commands,workarounds,expo,unitymtgrabhandles,ezoom,staticswitcher,fade,scale,unityshell]
Date: Sun Apr 24 22:41:05 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Beta amd64 (20110330)
ProcEnviron:
LANGUAGE=es_AR:en
LANG=es_AR.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-04-21 (3 days ago)

Tags:

Revision history for this message

Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone) wrote on 2011-04-25:

Video showing the problem Edit (2.8 MiB, video/ogg)
Dependencies.txt Edit (5.6 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
GconfCompiz.txt Edit (36.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

Sebastien Bacher (seb128) on 2011-04-26

Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
importance:	Undecided → Low
Changed in unity:
status:	New → Incomplete
Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Incomplete
Changed in unity:
importance:	Undecided → Low

Revision history for this message

Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote on 2011-04-26:

seems similar to bug #738636

Revision history for this message

Andrea Azzarone (azzar1) wrote on 2011-08-13:

It's a mix of the bug #727903 and of the bug #727901.

Changed in ayatana-design:
status:	New → Invalid

Revision history for this message

larrybradley (larry-w-bradley) wrote on 2012-10-19:

The simple way to do this is to Minimize the window to which you want to drag the file, then make the window "Always on top." Open or go to the window from which you wish to drag the file or Folder. DND the file or folder. Works like a charm for adding files to Google Drive and for attaching files to Gmail, assume it will work with other windows/programs (tried it with Writer, for instance, works like it should). Not as elegant as dnd to the launcher, but hey, it works, it is simple and it takes just a few seconds more than dnd to the launcher.

P.S. - Resizing the screens manually makes for a better dnd experience. Hint: Whan dnd'ing to Google Drive, move the file or folder around on the Drive window until you see the " + " handle on the file / folder icon; drop the file and the Google Drive upload dialog window should launch.