"Automatically select icons" mouse configure option overly eager

[kko]

Binary package hint: kdebase

It should only affect icons, as it says.

As it stands currently (Kubuntu Breezy, KDE 3.4.3), the feature is largely unusable, which is a shame, because this would be, in a single-click-to-execute -environment, IMO _the_ most useable way to select a file / icon.

The "Automatically select icons" -option currently affects for instance the following, which it shouldn't:
- KDE control modules (try e.g. "Configure Window Behaviour" and move mouse over the list on the left). This is still manageable (due to workable page design), and not my main issue.
- Web-based selection forms. Try the KDE Bug Tracking System's query (http://bugs.kde.org/query.cgi) with this option on, and move the mouse above the selection boxes. This makes it very hard to use the feature.

The following I have seen mentioned, but haven't tested myself - see the three open KDE BTS reports, in which this issue is reported. I will add a reference to these:
- Text completion boxes (with auto-complete suggestions), save file dialogs, most probably something else.

[kko (kko)]

PS. Please see also bug 45843, which further increases the difficulty of easily selecting and e.g. renaming a file, thus aggravating the problem - there's currently a scarcity of practical ways to select a file in KDE's single-click-to-execute environment. Luckily, the situation should be remediable.

I am aware of the Ctrl-LeftClick option, but do not consider it terribly practical compared to what could be achieved by either the "automatically select icons" or "context menu not disactivating keyboard shortcuts".

[Yuriy Kozlov (yuriy-kozlov)]

I've also ran into this problem and find it annoying. My problem has mostly been when using the document list in kate. If I leave the mouse over it and start working on something, it often switches to some other file that the mouse was hovering over.

This will probably have to be fixed upstream.

[kko (kko)]

Oh, a further thing where it auto-selects something it shouldn't - Akregator article list.

[kko (kko)]

Marking as confirmed based on Yuriy Kozlov's comments above.

[kko (kko)]

Still present with KDE 3.5.5. in Kubuntu Dapper.

[Brian Ealdwine (eode)]

Still present in Edgy.

[Lydia Pintscher (lydia-pintscher)]

Is this still valid for hardy?

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need
to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments.
Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't
hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report
you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change
the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[kko (kko)]

Still valid in Hardy (to which I recently updated) & KDE 3.5.9, on all counts reported here:
- KDE control modules
- web-based selection forms (in Konqueror, not in Firefox)
- Akregator article list (and feed list)
- Kate file list

I did not test the cases mentioned as "hearsay" in the original subscription.

[duryodhan (duryodhan)]

Hi there!

Thanks for reporting this bug! Your bug seems to be a problem with the KDE program itself, and not with our KDE packages. But don't worry! This issue is being tracked by the KDE developers at:

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45957
http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71929

Once fixed in KDE, it will be included in Kubuntu once the KDE version the fix is in in reaches Kubuntu.

Thanks!