GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 128227
Move/copy behaviour on drag and drop is inconsistent with documentation
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Description of Problem: The Nautilus help says that to move a file, I can just drag it from its old location to its new location; however, if the two locations are on different filesystems, Nautilus will default to copying the file rather than moving it. Steps to reproduce the problem: (using nautilus-2.4.1 and gnome2-user-docs-2.4.1) 1. Examine section 1.4.3 of the Nautilus help. 2. Attempt to drag a file from one filesystem to another without pressing any modifier keys, as it says to do. Actual Results: The mouse pointer indicates that Nautilus will cop y the dragged file rather than moving it, and it does indeed copy it. Expected Results: The mouse pointer should indicate that Nautilus will move the file, as it would when dragging to the same filesystem. How often does this happen? Always. Additional Information: This is either a documentation bug or a code bug (the current behaviour is deliberate -- nautilus-dnd.c, line 359 onwards). I'd prefer it if it had the behaviour described in the documentation; when I drag a file, I'm almost always moving it rather than wanting to copy it, and the always-move behaviour doesn't require the user to know what filesystem a folder is on to predict what dragging a file will do.
Created attachment 22052 [details] [review] Make Nautilus behave how the help says it should
There is a specific reason it behaves this way, though I don't remember offhand why. Might be better to patch the docs, though that call is obviously up to the maintainers.
Comment on attachment 22052 [details] [review] Make Nautilus behave how the help says it should yeah, this should be a docs patch, this is the intended behavior.
me as old user: Ok, files on different file systems, should use middle button to move. Now delete that folder I wanted to move. me as no-worring-or-aware-of-such-stuff-user: Folders are things witch keep my files. I just want a default action (either copy or move) for dragging files with left button and a menu for alternative actions in middle button. I don't wanna be aware of different filesystem's as nautilus doesn't show me any difference between their folders.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 143746 ***