Bug 492301

Summary: When dragging a file on top of another file, consider moving the target file out of the way
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: Fernando M. Muniz <fernandommuniz>
Component: Desktop icons & Folder View widgetAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL    
Severity: wishlist CC: hein, nate, notmart
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 6.1.4   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: Arch Linux   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Current it's only "Go back to previous position".

Description Fernando M. Muniz 2024-08-28 06:47:32 UTC
Created attachment 173024 [details]
Current it's only "Go back to previous position".

There should be an option of how the user wants the desktop to respond when a file is placed over a file:
1- Go back to previous position.
2- Push the file(s) to the next place in the row (obeying the users' vertical row or the horizontal row configuration).
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2024-08-28 18:40:51 UTC
This kind of behavior is waaaaaay too specific to have a user-facing option for. So we would either do it universally, or not at all.

So when you drop a file on top of another file, we could in theory move the other file out of the way. However this opens a huge can of worms: what if the other file can't move out of the way because it's surrounded by other files; do all of them move too? What if this causes a row to overflow; should the entire row move to another or, or should just the items at the end move to another row? What if that row is full as well?

The possibilities here are quite endless. And even if we managed to account for all of them, is this really a behavior that makes sense? I don't think so. If I drop a file on another file and the rest of my whole layout can shift around as a result of it, that could be unexpected and quite disruptive. If I've arranged my files and folders just where I wanted them, now I have a mess to clean up.

I don't think we can do this, sorry.
Comment 2 Fernando M. Muniz 2024-08-28 19:16:11 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> This kind of behavior is waaaaaay too specific to have a user-facing option
> for. So we would either do it universally, or not at all.
> 
> So when you drop a file on top of another file, we could in theory move the
> other file out of the way. However this opens a huge can of worms: what if
> the other file can't move out of the way because it's surrounded by other
> files; do all of them move too? What if this causes a row to overflow;
> should the entire row move to another or, or should just the items at the
> end move to another row? What if that row is full as well?
> 
> The possibilities here are quite endless. And even if we managed to account
> for all of them, is this really a behavior that makes sense? I don't think
> so. If I drop a file on another file and the rest of my whole layout can
> shift around as a result of it, that could be unexpected and quite
> disruptive. If I've arranged my files and folders just where I wanted them,
> now I have a mess to clean up.
> 
> I don't think we can do this, sorry.

Alternatively it could simply make the file go back to its previous position if it would otherwise result in more than a single row of them. This one would have better predictability.