Bug 210847

Summary:	Alt + tab while dragging an icon forces symlink mode
Product:	[Applications] dolphin	Reporter:	Victor Banke <victorvictorvictor>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Dolphin Bug Assignee <dolphin-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED
Severity:	normal	CC:	adrian, frank78ac, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version:	2.1
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Chakra
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Victor Banke 2009-10-17 00:51:01 UTC

Version:           1.3 (using 4.3.2 (KDE 4.3.2), Chakra KDE)
Compiler:          gcc
OS:                Linux (i686) release 2.6.30-ARCH

Note: This bug affects Konqueror the same way

Normal behaviour: When dragging a file in dolphin or konqueror, pressing Alt while dropping it somewhere causes it to make a symlink where it's dropped instead of the default move action, which is to move the file. Normally, you can press Alt or Ctrl (or other modifiers?) and it will cause it to be in link mode, copy mode, etc, while the button is being pressed, but if you let go of the alt button, it goes back to normal drag & drop move mode, and this is normal. 

THE BUG happens when trying to drag & drop something to another window, and Alt + Tab is used to switch to that window. Dolphin (and Konqueror) act like the Alt button is still being held down and drops it into the other window as a symlink without giving any options. 

Even if Alt+Tab is pressed and it's dropped back into the same window, it still creates a symlink automatically. 

I discovered this bug when dragging audio files into K3b, which needs a normal drag & drop. If Alt+Tab is used however, it does not add the file to the project because it thinks you are trying to "symlink" the file to K3b, which of course makes no sense. 

I hope this helps!

Comment 1 Frank Reininghaus 2009-10-18 00:47:38 UTC

Thanks for the bug report! I can confirm this (tried drag&drop from Dolphin to Konqueror in 4.3.2/Qt 4.5.2 and trunk/Qt 4.6):

1. If I start the drag and keep the mouse moving while I press Alt-Tab, a symlink is created without asking as you said.

2. If I start the drag and make sure that the mouse does *not* move while I press Alt-Tab, two things can happen:

a) If I do not move the mouse before I release the mouse button, only "Copy here" and "Link here" are offered, but not "Move here".

b) If I move the mouse after the Alt-Tab press and before releasing the mouse button, all three options are shown in the menu, as expected.

Very strange bug. Note that there is another bug where the keyboard modifiers are not recognised correctly if drag and drop happen in different processes (bug 178679), these issues might be related.

Comment 2 Jeroen van Meeuwen (Kolab Systems) 2012-08-24 16:19:41 UTC

Resetting assignee to default as per bug #305719

Comment 3 Adrián Chaves (Gallaecio) 2012-10-27 06:44:50 UTC

I can confirm that “Move Here” is not available unless you move the pointer before you release it.

I can also say that the link mark in the dragged icon is kept all the way, which is in my opinion part of the bug (it should not be there while Alt is not being pressed).

Comment 4 Nate Graham 2017-08-18 16:50:21 UTC

This seems to be working properly in the latest versions of Dolphin for me; when you remove your finger from the Alt key after having alt-tabbed to the program to which you want to drag the file, it correctly leaves symlink mode.