type ctrl-l?

Usability nerds, any opinion? Is this common enough for a dedicated GUI? The
problem is that we wants to use middle-click pasting and selecting the text will
cause the middle-click clipboard to be filled with the URI in the location
entry. Maybe pressing the middle mouse button on the "Location:" label should
paste in the entry?

I would have figured the kind of user that cared about middle click paste would
not use a graphical file manager, but i think it is safe to this would be an
uncommon use case.  

In Mozilla you can middle click anywhere on the page and you will be taken to
the Location in the selection buffer, no need to mess with the Location bar at
all.  Perhaps Nautilus could take a similar approach?  It would certainly be
easier to learn if the behaviour was similar Mozilla and this would be the
solution I would personally like best.  

Another approach might be to allow Ctrl+W to clear the text, which is standard
in most gtk text entry widgets, it a standard keybinding the Emacs adddicated
old timers inflicted^H^H^H^H^H insisted on having but from what I can tell it is
not available in Nautilus.   (This binding annoyed me immensely at first as I
expected the window to close, now I get annoyed when I unintentially close
windows when I meant to clear the text.)  

I'll have you know I am a *Usability Geek* not a _nerd_, thank you very much!
(which conveniently avoids the fact that I make no claim of being right or an
expert either).  

I agree with Alan's point about people who use middle-click not using
nautilus. (Or at least, I'm an example of such a person.) But this problem
annoys me in Firefox all the time, so it would be nice if we could come up
with a good solution in nautilus and then got moz to adopt it :-)

The current moz solution (middle-click anywhere goes to the URL in the
selection buffer) *sucks* IMHO, because it's too easy to try to middle-click
a link (to open in a new tab) and miss (especially if you have a scroll wheel
for your middle button, in which case a slightly-off-center click can turn
into a scroll+click, causing you to click one line above or below where you
meant to.)

Middle-click on the Location: label is undiscoverable (and only helps for
the specific case of nautilus. Firefox doesn't have a label there.)

Maybe we could update the fdo cut+paste spec to say that Shift+Middle or
Ctrl+Middle means "replace the text under the cursor with the selection
buffer"? (And get gtk, qt, and moz to implement that.)

Alan: Sorry for insultion the usability crew again (comment 2). I wasn't
supposed to do so and just looked up geek/nerd in a dictionary, noting that it
is very unfriendly :/.

Dan: Your idea sounds very nice, but if I'm taken right it doesn't have anything
to do with freedesktop specs. It is just an implementation detail.

Christian: No worries.  

Dan I always use Ctrl+Click to open links in new window (I prefer to use both
hands) so I've not had the problems you mention.  

Looking a little closer at the original request the user specifically asks for
something in the right click menu to clear text.  The context menu for the
Location bar already has Delete, however it is greyed out if no text is selected.  
To meet the exact requirements of the request all that needs to be done is
enable Delete and have it clear the whole URL or whatever part of the URL is
currently selected.  

That should be enough to close this bug provide something that works and not
spend too much time and effort on a relatively rare use case.  

Alan: Should we have a clear menuitem for the context menu of *all* GtkEntries?
What about GtkTextViews?

Christian, I was not suggesting adding a new menu item.  I was suggesting making
a slight change to how Delete behaves.  
Currently delete is useless if no text is selected, instead of being disabled it
should delete the all the text in the container without needing to select it all
first.  

what about:

middle-mouse button click on entry will delete the old contest and paste the new
on (from primary selection)

middle-mouse button click AND the entry has already the focus will just paste at
the cursor positon. (click with left button first at desired position)

would be very usefull for example google input field, cause it is always full of
old text.

mmh i like this idea ;) not only for nautilus

Jochen: This sounds like an excellent proposal.

FWIW, this proposal doesn't help people who use focus-follows-mouse though[1]...
for them the entry will always have focus before they can middle-click. 
(Personally I think it would be kind of confusing and undiscoverable as well,
but that's just IMHO.)

[1] Of course, some would argue there's no helping people who use
focus-follow-mouse :)

so better idea and working solution:

*if you click with the middle mousebutton for short time (normal click time)
middle mousebutton works normal

*if you click for >0.3 sec, (time between button press and buttun release)
the old content will be deleted first

see attached file.


code will go into: http://pasteit.sourceforge.net/

check also: http://entry-cleaner.sourceforge.net/

Created attachment 49735 [details]
working example

Jochen: I think this is totally undiscoverable and doesn't feel right for people
who don't know about it, since they expect the insertion on button press not on
button release. IMHO we could also specify a modifier that has to be pressed
when middle-clicking to clear&paste.

most application use button release, at least the most used application: firefox.
(most clicks work on release like window closing, button press etc)

simple solution would be to add a little trash icon/X shaped icon inside the
entry, like the red button in the incremental search in thunderbird mail client.

Note that with GTK+ 2.8, there is a "delete" popup menu item which clears the
entry. Lowering priority... .

The Delete item only deletes what's selected. 
Compare Epiphany, it has a Clear item on the context menu of the location bar.

However is this bug still relevant now that the location bar is replaced by the
pathbar?

Reinout: Would be nice to have for consistency IMHO.

Whatever we do, we should make sure to not effect non-middle-click-to-paste and focus-follows-mouse 
users. (e.g. as Dan points out,  even seemingly non-disruptive changes like allowing middle click to paste 
URLs into the browser window can effect the central use case). A right click menu option in the location 
bar text dialog seems ok, though not terribly important either way.

Why dont have an icon inside the entry, like in Rhythmbox or Banshee?. The little broom icon.
This could be placed in the right, just like the secure icon.

That clean icon seems to be apart of libsexy if my memory serves me correctly.  Evolution uses it too.

The icon entry is available in GTK+ 2.16, so I committed a fix for this to git master.

commit 0133e979531cd41ca7f1d76ff5adf66ddfa7d67a
Author: Cosimo Cecchi <cosimoc@gnome.org>
Date:   Thu May 28 15:55:55 2009 +0200

    Clear text in the location entry
    
    Add a clear text icon in the location entry, now that the icon entry is
    available in GTK+ 2.16 (#145732).