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It seems like drag-and-drop is out of fashion. I think big reason is that it really cannot be done well on touch-screen devices and touchpads. I don't really co
by js8 7y ago
It seems like drag-and-drop is out of fashion. I think big reason is that it really cannot be done well on touch-screen devices and touchpads. I don't really complain, because I have always found d&d rather impractical (and it's also terrible for accessibility); unfortunately, there are some applications that still rely on it a lot.
(As an aside, what bothers me more that the right-click menu goes out of fashion. That I feel is a bigger usability problem.)
- jarfil 7y ago> cannot be done well on touch-screen devices I literally just drag-and-dropped that text on a phone.
- js8 7y agoGood for you! I personally find it difficult to do it without a mouse. And even with mouse it's error prone, you might accidentally move your mouse during clicking on something, and d&d something somewhere that you don't really want to (classic example is moving folder into another folder in the file open dialog).
- imhoguy 7y agoDnD is natural human gesture to move things around. Implementation is imperfect but Undo should help then. Desktop has all this sorted out for years.
- js8 7y agoUnfortunately, there is no Undo on the file open dialog. So, no, the desktop hasn't it sorted all out. But I don't really mind DnD as long as it's not obtrusive and there are other means to accomplish the task.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoDid you try pressing Ctrl-Z? This has worked in Windows Explorer (and by extension the native File Open dialog) for years.
- gsich 7y agoAh who cares, it works with a mouse. One should not force inferior input methods to devices that have better ones.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoBy that logic we should eliminate the mouse and just go back to keyboards?
- pmontra 7y agoA customer of mine uses Kanbanize to organize software development. Think Trello on steroids. I imagine that instead of dragging cards to their destination we could open a menu and select the destination column. Maybe that would be even faster sometimes. However reordering cards inside a column without drag and drop would be a pain: Move Up, Move Down buttons, no thanks.
- js8 7y agoI don't disagree, this is a great example. I think d&d can work in special cases where the distance for the item to travel is not too small (so that you wouldn't move things by accident), but it is also not uncomfortably far away so that you don't see the target and have to navigate to it while you're d&d-ing. I guess these limiting factors are what makes it tricky to get right. But what about selecting a card and being able to move it around with the keyboard?
- The_rationalist 7y agoLess ergonomic and most people don't use the keyboard anyway.
- js8 7y agoWe know very well that well-designed keyboard UI can run circles around mouse-based one in a typical application. If you're a user of a "Kanban board", you're not some aunt with a phone, you are most likely in the office and you can learn to use the keyboard productively in the productivity app you use every day.
- josteink 7y ago> If you're a user of a "Kanban board", you're not some aunt with a phone No. Instead it means you are a project manager, and that often implies that your technical skills are on the same level as that aunt, maybe slightly better, but not by much. > you are most likely in the office and you can learn to use the keyboard Or just keep using drag'n'drop which is the established pattern, which also works really well for this, with the mouse you already have in the office.
- The_rationalist 7y agoHow to move cards on a Kanban (say Trello) without drag and drop?
- octocode 7y agoIn Trello, on a card: Click the "Edit" menu > "move" > select board, column, position. Not as convenient as drag and drop, but it's possible to do.
- js8 7y agoSelect card by clicking, moving it to the destination by clicking to some other specific place. Advantage of this to d&d is that you can navigate around during the process. You can easily scroll the screen if it's too large. You can for example select a different card. You can switch to different window and do something there.
- Marsymars 7y agoMy preference would be something like arrow keys move the card selection, while holding ctrl + arrow keys moves the selected card.
- londons_explore 7y agoThe clear solution is to be able to drag something to a temporary location. For example, a Trello card I should be able to drag to the home button on my iPhone, then switch apps, maybe go do something else for a bit, and then continue dragging it into an email, or HN comment. Drag and drop should be more like universal cut and paste. It should be against intergalactic law to implement it all yourself so you can't drag between apps.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]