Created attachment 160709 [details] Current Dolphin behavior vs. Windows Explorer I'd really like to be able to select files and folders (in detail view) with a rectangular selection, i.e. not selecting whole rows but just the elements under the rectangle expanded via the mouse, as in Windows Explorer. Attached are the current behavior and explorer behavior. I think it would be extremely useful and user-friendly for those like me coming from Windows
What's the difference, though? What would be the advantage of the Windows Explorer method over what Dolphin does?
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1) > What's the difference, though? What would be the advantage of the Windows > Explorer method over what Dolphin does? User-friendliness and ease of use for ex-Windows users. It would really help and make Dolphin very nice and familiar to them. That can of course be an option in the settings.
In addition to my prev comment, please note that the Icon and Compac views already implement this (rectangle selection), so I really don't understand why the details view has to have a different behavior. I find rectangle selection much more natural and normal to have it everywhere (say for instance, icons in the desktop, they are selectable with a rectangular selection for instance)
Ok I've found the actual code that makes the DetailsView selection behave differently: https://github.com/KDE/dolphin/blob/4cb162842226a7847b627cea8baa3bb263448263/src/kitemviews/kitemlistcontroller.cpp#L1812 It would just matter of enabling this code only if its option in settings is enabled, which would need to be added. Please consider adding it, as I said it's really worth the (little) effort :D
We aren't going to add an option for this, sorry. I think this is something you can get used to in about 5 seconds, and one approach isn't obviously objectively better than the other.