nemo: Arrow keys don't work after changing sort order

[Rolf]

Version: Linux Mint 18.3
Steps to reproduce:
1) Open up any directory in nemo with at least a few files in it.
2) Make sure you are in "List View" (change to it if necessary).
3) Use the up/down keys to change the highlighted file.
4) Click on one of the column headers to change the sorting order.
5) Press up or down.

What happened:
Nothing. As far as I can tell, pressing those keys has absolutely no impact on the display or the computer whatsoever.

What I expected to happen:
I expected the highlighted file to change like it normally changes when you use the up/down keys.

I can consistently reproduce this on my computer. This is NOT new to Mint 18.3, I noticed this a while ago.

[Michael Webster (miketwebster)]

This happens because by clicking a column you've focused the column (It does this so they can be re-ordered.) The key navigation is fine, you just need to click in the view to re-focus it.

[Rolf (thats-unpossible)]

OK, I understand what you are saying. The focus is changed by my clicking, and so the keyboard events don't go to the list of files anymore.

But other keyboard shortcuts continue to work (like Home, End, Ctrl+Up, etc). Why can't Up/Down get the same treatment?

If the list of files/directories is longer than the current screen size, then there is nowhere to click that won't cause an action. You can hold down Ctrl when you click, but now you are getting very nuanced and complicated to allow fluid keyboard use.

Also, I don't see any value in having the focus stay on the column header (since there don't seem to be any keyboard shortcuts that specifically affect it). I think it would provide a better user experience if the keyboard focus was returned to the file list automatically after clicking one of the column headers.

[Michael Webster (miketwebster)]

They're not shortcuts like those others you mentioned (they are shortcuts to control the scroll bar actually)

I understand what you're after, I'm just not sure how technically feasible it is without breaking normal behavior for numerous other things - we work with a gui toolkit and have to, for the most part, follow their design and interface rules. We can override them, but it's almost always more complicated than we initially thought it would be.

I'll have a look at this soon.