New "right click edits launchers" feature breaks "show applications menu on desktop right click"

[Forest]

I have the "show applications menu on desktop right click" option enabled in Settings -> Desktop -> Menus -> Desktop Menu. For years, I have been comfortably right-clicking the desktop, dragging my mouse cursor to the appropriate application, and releasing the mouse to launch the application. Quick and easy.

Recently, a "right click edits launchers" feature was added to xfdesktop, and it breaks my tried-and-true right-click menu. Now, instead of launching my application, an "Edit Launcher" window appears. This is obviously not what I want.

I can sort-of work around the problem by right-clicking the desktop, releasing the button, then moving the mouse to my desired application, and then clicking and releasing again, but the extra motions and extra attention I have to spend on that approach makes it really awkward. It's also special-case behavior that deviates from the way GUI menus work pretty much everywhere else in the world. I want click-drag-release to work again, please.

This looks like the commit that introduced the breakage:
http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/commit/?id=12b9528fd10769fff10346a503922fa280d0c293

Since the new feature can also be activated with a shift-click, I suggest simply removing its right-click activation to fix this problem. I'll attach a patch that does this.

[Xfce-e (xfce-e)]

I have the "show applications menu on desktop right click" option enabled in Settings -> Desktop -> Menus -> Desktop Menu. For years, I have been comfortably right-clicking the desktop, dragging my mouse cursor to the appropriate application, and releasing the mouse to launch the application. Quick and easy.

Recently, a "right click edits launchers" feature was added to xfdesktop, and it breaks my tried-and-true right-click menu. Now, instead of launching my application, an "Edit Launcher" window appears. This is obviously not what I want.

I can sort-of work around the problem by right-clicking the desktop, releasing the button, then moving the mouse to my desired application, and then clicking and releasing again, but the extra motions and extra attention I have to spend on that approach makes it really awkward. It's also special-case behavior that deviates from the way GUI menus work pretty much everywhere else in the world. I want click-drag-release to work again, please.

This looks like the commit that introduced the breakage:
http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/commit/?id=12b9528fd10769fff10346a503922fa280d0c293

Since the new feature can also be activated with a shift-click, I suggest simply removing its right-click activation to fix this problem. I'll attach a patch that does this.

[Xfce-e (xfce-e)]

Created attachment 5557
Restore right-click applications menu behavior (do not edit)

[Sean Davis (bluesabre)]

Marking as Opinion for now. Since this is an upstream decision, we'll track the progress in the Xfce bugzilla. Thanks for your bug report!

[Eric Koegel (eric-koegel)]

Instead of removing the right click option since some other users requested that, what about an option in xfdesktop-settings under the menus tab to disable the edit feature?

[Xfce-e (xfce-e)]

I don't think an option to disable editing would be a good solution here. I still want to be able to easily edit the menu launchers; I just don't want that to break other features than I'm using. Also, it's a pretty bad user experience for a feature (right click desktop menu) to be broken unless the user knows to disable another feature in a separate settings panel.

Does the edit action really have to be a right-click?

If so, how about distinguishing between click-release (to edit) and openmenu-release (to launch)? This would make a lot of sense, because all other GUIs that I've used know the difference between a button being released over the same item on which it was pressed and a button being released over a different item. In other words, pressing a mouse button on the desktop followed by releasing it on a menu item really shouldn't be considered a normal "click" in the first place.

[Brian Johnson (jbb-rose)]

I second Forest's comments. The "right click edits launchers" feature breaks the right-button behavior I've relied on for years. I'd greatly appreciate it if this feature were removed, or some method were provided to disable it. A gui-less item in the settings editor would be sufficient.

Other than this, the changes in XFCE 4.10 (as shipped in XUbuntu 14.04) are great: it's a complete, reliable, easy-to-use desktop UI. Keep up the good work!

[Eric Koegel (eric-koegel)]

Pushed a fix for this in master. Under the xfce4-desktop channel, add the /desktop-icons/right-click-edits-menu and set it to FALSE and it will be back to how it was. Shift + left click can then be used to easily edit the launchers.

commit 2287081a6e62e136fbc4976958623f60e7607b92
Author: Eric Koegel <email address hidden>
Date: Mon Oct 27 13:08:17 2014 +0300

    Editing menu items with right click optional (Bug #11031)

    "/desktop-icons/right-click-edits-menu" xfconf option has been
    added. Setting it to FALSE will disable the right click menu
    editor and revert to the previous behavior. The menu can still
    be edited with a shift+left click in either case.
http://git.xfce.org/xfce/xfdesktop/commit/?id=2287081a6e62e136fbc4976958623f60e7607b92

Marking this bug a closed, enjoy!

[Xfce-e (xfce-e)]

Thank you!

Is this new setting documented somewhere?

[Ken Dreyer (ktdreyer)]

This new feature was really confusing me when I upgraded to Fedora 22. I use the right-mouse button so instinctively that it didn't occur to me to try using the left one, so I kept wondering why the "edit launcher" window popped up over and over.

For newbies to xfconf (like me), here's the exact command I ran to toggle this new setting:

xfconf-query -c xfce4-desktop -p /desktop-icons/right-click-edits-menu -n -t bool -s false