I also single-click files more often than not for file management reasons rather than to open them, for opening files I usually launch the application with alt+f2 and the specific file I want will be in the recent files list. This is quicker than navigating with any file manager for the layout of my disk because I use the same 5-10 files in an application more often than not over and over again.

Not to mention that EVERYBODY IS USED TO DOUBLE-CLICK. That means double-click IS MORE INTUITIVE because people ARE USED TO IT. Saying it’s better for newbies is absurd, how many newbies start their computer experience with Linux?

Now I understand that for many (most?) people they will most often often be opening files and not previewing like “The Geek” above or deleting/renaming like me so single-click could be a TINY bit more efficient as they will need to click less often. Considering how many keys we press an extra mouse click here and there is not going to give you RSI, that’s absurd and I don’t care if you have some silly study that finds it does funded by an RSI special interest group and written by people paid to find causes of RSI, it’s amazing how many people do not understand even rigorous scientific studies can find different outcomes depending how you tweak uncontrolled non-obvious variables and assume just because it was done by a PhD that makes it right. Look at nutrition for a fine example, you can find a bazillion special interest PhD’s coming up with conclusive findings to the same question that result in polar opposite answers.

So, end of rant and one request. It would be lovely if the KDE people made this a question upon startup. We are perfectly sane and sensible when we say we prefer double-click, not only because we are used to it and the MEAGRE efficency gain for SOME PEOPLE from single click is obliterated by all the mistakes accidently open files, but because for some methodologies it’s not more efficient at all.

The major problem with KDE is it thinks it is smarter than everyone else, doesn’t perform enough VARIED usability studies and doesn’t quality assure their products very throughly to iron out bugs.

The great thing about KDE is it is very flexible. Although it thick-headedly assumes non-standard ways are often better than standard ways for spurious reasons it can be bent to your will.

Take DOLPHIN for example. When I opened this file manager I thought, “oh what a polished turd. They have imitated Mac OS X finder” and as any medium-long term Mac OS X user will tell you, finder is the very worst part of Mac OS X. A couple of googles and flicking through the preferences and suddently I have a twin-pane file manager with detail columns, a follow-me terminal prompt, location bars I can type directories into and none of that Mac OS X preview faff which “The Geek” above finds useful (presumably he works with lots of images).

In fact, it’s now as powerful as Midnight Commander. I can navigate up/down with hotkeys and edit the menu to add actions. It even has superfluous fluff like inline renaming that doesn’t make any difference to function but visually matches what you are used to if you like it that way. Superb. And that’s why despite how annoying it can be, KDE simply has no equal for a power user desktop environment. Your minimalist window managers don’t make you clever, I have all the hot key power you do and all the KDE control you don’t. Lol…

I’ve disabled trackbacks entirely on this site. I don’t find them to be very useful to the reader.

I usually only allow links if they are useful and relevant, which yours seems to be…. plus, you contributed to the discussion =)

That’s interesting… I’ll have to look into that. That would definitely be useful if you wanted to roll out KDE to a lot of regular users.

I think the real point is that people will like it both ways, but that the vast majority of people are used to double-clicking to open things. Seems that the interface should default to the settings that people are expecting, or at the very least there should be a small screen during setup to explain the two options to the user.