This week in KDE: Double-click by default
This was a week of huge changes and improvements, starting with our headliner! Yes it’s true, by default in Plasma 6, you’ll single-click to select files and folders, and double-click t…
Finally. Single click to open a file/directory is the first feature that I disable on a fresh system.
I personally much prefer single click but I guess as a default double click is good since it's like that on most systems
Why though? It should increase the life expectancy of your mice and touchpads because it results in fewer clicks and the mechanical parts thereby don't wear out so much.
Because no other OS or DE that I use does that and it's not convenient to jump from one to another. As of the wear, I think it's marginal. My main file manager is mc anyway.
The mouse wheel dies before anything else
boo this man
Personally, I disable it first thing after installing and I think it's easier this way for those who come from Windows. Those who still prefer the single click, can easily enable it again. Not a big deal.
More like for anybody coming from Windows, Mac or 90% of other DEs
My parents found single-click behavior less confusing. It's how everything works on their phones and in web browsers.
Yeah. I also found it massively helpful to tell grandparents to just click on things. Instead of 3 times a day teaching them about the differences between everything and if they want a single left click, a double-click or a right click. And that a double right-click wouldn't do anything useful at all.
Fun times :-D
My dad (early 60s) double-clicks web links as if they were folders. I stopped groaning ages ago lol
Plasma 6 is really shaping up to be quite a nice overhaul of the system.
These are awesome changes. Thank goodness I have one less thing to change on any given install.
I recently switched to KDE and got sooo confused by this not being default. Good they're making the change, small but important.
Noooo I've been using Plasma for over 7 years now and single click became default for me. I'll change it back anyways but still seems like a pointless change to me.
How are you even supposed to select files and folders in single-click? The tiny little + box that's very easy to miss?
That or holding ctrl. Or dragging and selecting with a box.
I usually drag a selection. It kind of rare that I want to select a single file and just select it and not go ahead and simultaneously open a context menu with the right mouse button.
There is a + over the top left corner of the icon that you can click for selection without opening. Pretty easy to use if you get the hang of it.
edit: Or you just click the right mouse button over the file you want to select.
Even on windows I mostly do ctrl + left click. If I'm selecting files I'm most likely going to copy/cut/paste them, so I'm most likely going to have my other hand on the keyboard anyway
Guess enough Windows users are coming over and they're getting confused/frustrated by the old mouse click behavior.
Is this an historical thing? I was really confused when I started using KDE.
I don't believe so. In KDE3 it was double click IIRC then it changed with the single click during the web mania UI when people suddenly wanted the big unification for everything: phones, fridges, tablets, supercomputers.
Like a lot of other people mention, this is the first thing I flip in plasma too. A mouse with a pointer is just different from a tactile interface.
I personally don't remember it being that way but it's been a long time since I've used KDE. Like, Mandrake was still a thing when I last used it.
Partially, sure, but there's also a lot of KDE devs that are really convinced that it's objectively superior and wanted the default to convince more people to use it.
In 2004, Microsoft was granted a patent on using a double-click on "limited resource computing devices". As a result of this, some observers fear that any U.S. company which uses double-clicking may have to change their product not to use the technology, pay licensing fees to Microsoft, or give Microsoft access to intellectual property.
Honestly, if that is the case, kudos to them. No DE should work against the user, and that doesn't mean the DE is dumbed down.
Now let's don't bring that fictional character historically used as the ultimate tool of oppression by feudal rulers and governments and now by conservatives into the matter :)
I get why they're doing it, so it's not a big deal for me as long as I can still use single click to open folders.
That being said, double click always seemed like a weird "hack" to use what is essentially the main function of the left click, no? As in, the primary thing I want to do when left clicking something is to go to that thing. Go to that folder, go to that link and go to (open) that application. "Selecting" is not the main action I use so I've always felt weird when "selecting" gets what is essentially the main function of the mouse, the left click.
I am on the opposite side. Selection feels absolutely like the primary function, with opening a thing being secondary. If nothing else, because it's super easy to click the wrong thing and I don't want to be punished for it. Also, I want to review my options before deciding what to click, and selecting them first helps me stay focused on one thing at a time for a moment. I also often select text I'm reading in a webpage. Helps my reading comprehension
LESS GO, I finally don't have to change that setting every time I use KDE
Well, now I will start changing this setting every time
The minimum screen brightness is now always 1, and the minimum keyboard brightness is now always 0, ensuring that the screen backlight never turns off completely at minimum brightness, while the keyboard backlight always does
That's cool, but is it still possible to easily switch off the screen? For laptops, that's useful from time to time, when you don't want to close the lid and lock it, but you're waiting for a long running operation or just listening to music, and want to save battery power.
I think the best way would be that when long pressing the brightness lowering key, it stops lowering it at 1% as with this change, but pressing it once more would make it 0.
Also, I wasn't able to keep up with recent changes. Does anyone know if it's possible now to customize the rounded corners of windows and panels?
Laptops usually have a dedicated key to turn off the screen, no?
Btw, for those who think it's natural to select things by left clicking on them, try pressing space in dolphin to activate the "selection mode".
I'm a Gnome user where double click is default, but this is a really terrible decision. It shouldn't be default in Gnome either. Who cares how it is in Windows, Windows is bad.
Why always bring up windows?
Because they wouldn't have made this change if it wasn't the default in Windows.
Big mistake in my opinion. Coming from Windows, it took me only one day to get comfortable with single click and now I don't want to miss it anymore.
I reckon they looked at their telemetry and chose the setting most people have which has the side effect of being more familiar to Windows refugees.
Telemetry wasn't a factor iirc. The biggest reasons for this change were that
Oh Noooooooo! Why change a sane default? It is like.... we (the developed world) also don't change back to measuring distances with our arms and legs just to cater for american people and just because there are a lot of them... Or our body weight in stones.
What's next? Changing LibreOffice's file format every few years and make it impossible to gather sane log data and fix your issues yourself, so that it feels more like 'home' for the windows users?
Why bother so much with a default that can be easily changed? It's not like they deleted single click...
You're right. It's just that it adds to all of the other things. I wouldn't have said anything if it were the only thing. And what annoys me is: It's been that way for as long as I can think. And I think it's been pretty good that way. So why now change things that have been an excellent choice and have worked well for decades?
And now I can't ridicule the Gnome people any more.
I'd be happy to change my mind if someone gave me one argument in support of a double-click. Except for 'I only know windows and don't know any better'.
Well, I'm exaggerating a bit. I think I'm going to be okay. I'll just change the settings to how I like them. And maybe try Sway or something like that.
The unfortunate reality is that development testing prioritises the default settings. How long until bugs start appearing for those of us who prefer the single click current default.
That's a weird take. Default caters for majority users in most cases, so ofc they would be prioritised as it should be.
The current default single click will no longer be default. Development testing tends to focus on the default settings. That means there is a higher risk of a bug slipping through to the users who choose to continue using single click. The situation is unfortunate for those who prefer single click. Not sure why that is a weird take?
