Column view: Single click sometimes selects and sometimes shows folder contents

[Letterus]

What Happened?

Files does progress the contents of the directory, but does not show the list when in columns view.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open files
2. Switch to columns view.
3. Select a folder (contents should appear).
4. Select a different folder within the same hierarchy level: Contents sometimes do not appear or only appear after double click.

Expected Behavior

Folder contents should be listed after single click.

OS Version

8.x (Early Access)

Software Version

Latest release (I have run all updates)

Log Output

No response

Hardware Info

No response

[jeremypw]

@Letterus I am not experiencing this provided I click on the icon or name text. Clicking on white space only selects the item though. This is the intended behaviour for ListView; ColumnView is based on that. If you double click on a folder item (including whitespace) then it opens as a new root, which is intended.

[Letterus]

@jeremypw Thank you for your reply. Now that I know: Yes, that's the behaviour. So it's not a bug technically, but I'd consider it an UI/UX bug. The behaviour is unexpected und alienates users to my understanding.

Edit: What I mean: Only clicking on the name/icon refers to "open" and clicking on the whitespace refers to "select". That's an unexpected behaviour.

[jeremypw]

I have changed the description and flagged this for design team input.

[jeremypw]

For comparison, Gnome Files always selects with single click and always opens with double click. However, single-click to open folders is a design choice on ElementaryOS. We could drop single click on whitespace to select and rely on the selection helper or <Shift><Click> and <Ctrl><Click> to select I guess if approved by the design team.

[jeremypw]

Note that the cursor changes according to what will happen on a single click in a similar way to a web browser.

[Letterus]

Well, for column view I'm perfectly fine with single click. Think that's the way to go. I find confusing that the area within which you need to click is so important.

[jeremypw]

It depends on what you are use to I guess. I think this behaviour was a concession to people upset by dropping single-click-to-select mode. It would simplify the code not to have it.