Middle click on application icon should open a new window

I think this is a useful approach. John, middle click is a precious
resource but I think I prefer this to the ubiquitous extra item in the
quicklists. Thoughts?

Mark

I agree, this provides a good solution to a identified problem and fits with user expectations from other operating systems.

Consistency is important, so this change needs to be implemented in the:
- Springboard (what we used to call the launcher)
- Dash
- .desktop files in Nautilus

On 04/02/11 09:44, John Lea wrote:
> I agree, this provides a good solution to a identified problem and fits
> with user expectations from other operating systems.
>
> Consistency is important, so this change needs to be implemented in the:
> - Springboard (what we used to call the launcher)
> - Dash
> - .desktop files in Nautilus

So:

 * add the middle-click option
 * drop the magic "new window" from QuickLists

Thanks!
Mark

I don't think that this magic item in QuickLists should be dropped — what if the middle button is unavailable (on a touchpad or something)?

Sorry for my English, I hope you'll understand what I wrote here.

ok, can be done in the train with the other launcher changes.

@Evgeniy: if you click left and right simultaneously, it emulates a middle button. All devices have something similar.

This bug was fixed in the package unity - 3.4.2-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (3.4.2-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  * New upstream release:
    - add --distro switch to remove local installation of unity with default
      options (LP: #715703)
    - global search and speedups in places
    - Using fade effect to cut the window Title when it's longer than the panel
      (LP: #694924)
    - Launcher - Add ability for apps to indicate progress through Launcher icon
      (LP: #676596)
    - calling unity should kill unity-panel-service (LP: #711289)
    - unity places should return a default icon when no matching icon is found
      (LP: #711200)
    - the launcher should start hidding when an icon is clicked (LP: #709178)
    - Highlight drag-friendly Launcher tiles when dragging a file (LP: #607782)
    - Fix migrate_favorites.py crashed with OSError in get_log_file(): [Errno 2]
      No such file or directory: '/home/ubuntu/.local/share/unity' (LP: #711964)
    - places should support wrong Icon= format (with extensions) (LP: #711189)
    - unity crashed with AttributeError in reset_unity_compiz_profile():
      'NoneType' object has no attribute 'get_default_value' (LP: #711105)
    - unity crashed with GError in reset_unity_compiz_profile() (LP: #710876)
    - Middle click on application icon should open a new window (LP: #709707)
    - Launcher - Add interaction to support dragging and dropping behind the
      launcher (LP: #702482)
    - Launcher - Enable dragging and dropping of files & folders to Launcher
      icons (LP: #676549)
    - Launcher - Add number notifier to Launcher icons (LP: #676455)
    - Support dragging files to trash to delete them (LP: #619686)
    - [launcher] Indicator-only applications showing as open applications
      (LP: #703396)
    - Unity does not accept mouse clicks (LP: #683328)
    - dash is empty (LP: #710792)
  * debian/control:
    - depends on latest nux
 -- Didier Roche <email address hidden> Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:45:47 +0100

I don't see how is launching application from the launcher remotely similar to opening a new page in the background tab that you do by middle clicking. Sorry, but this new feature is completely indiscoverable. Also not many people know that you can emulate the third button by clicking two others at the same time (not to mention that it also makes it hard for people who don't have two buttons - support for three finger tapping if flaky).

I like the idea itself, but I don't think that removing the "Open a new window" from the context menu is the right thing to do. Actually, what I believe would be the right approach is to open a new window when user left-clicks on the icon, but only if there is no other "main" window already opened. But I'm pretty sure it's not something we can do at this point. Could you please reconsider the removal of this menu item?

Btw, Middle mouse button emulation is disabled by default on natty : Bug #710762
So making this feature depend on middle click *alone* would make it impossible to discover for laptop users.

just a heads-up that middlemouse-emulation is off by default now, see bug 710762.

for the record, the emulation was disabled only from the evdev driver, so touchpads using the synaptics driver still use it.

This one is a go, thanks!

Is it possible to restart the discussion about the "open new window" quicklists entry?

While I like the idea to use the "middle click" to open a new window, I can imagine that some users will have a problem with this implementation.

Is it thus possible to keep both solutions? A quicklists entry to open the new window AND the middle click as the primary option to open a new window?

Especially the emulation of the middle click leads to some problems. I myself am that ham-handed that using the middle click emulation leads occasionally to a situation where I have to try twice or even thrice.

I asked a couple of friends and colleagues of mine (all of them use Ubuntu as their primary system or at least in a dual boot environment). So out of these six people I questioned four feel uncomfortable with the middle click because they feel somewhat irritated by the mouse wheel, which is factually their middle click (sounds funny, I know).
Furthermore all of them (six out of six) do not like the middle click emulation (as it seems they are as clumsy as I am ;) ). All of them said it should at least be an option to have a secondary possibility to open a new window (i.e. a quicklists entry).

So is it possible to reintroduce the quicklists entry?

Hello SRoesgen, a quick re-paste of what I sent to the Ayatana mailing list and investigating when somebody else asked the same the other day:

  https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/msg04947.html

  On Thu, 10 Mar 2011, Xavier Guillot wrote:
  > - Keep in launcher
  > - Quit
  > and a third one to launch another window of the program ...
  > Now this possibility disappeared, it's available with middle click.

  Hello Xavier. I've leaned over the table and enquired about this, and
  John has told me that the middle-click shortcut is supposed to be *in
  addition* to the means of opening a new window via the right-click
  QuickList.

  Apparently it's a co-incidence that one temporarily disappeared
  whilst the other was being introduced.

Hi,
ok sorry for starting the fuzz then.
I just saw that the "open new window" option disappeared and, therefore, thought that the entry was dropped from the quicklists.

Anyway, thanks for the fast reply.

Sebastian

@Paul? did you read my answer (which links to that bug report btw): https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana/msg04955.html
Again, the change is, as described in this bug report, intentional and we need to start patching the desktop files.

Instead of looking around for one bug, I filed bug #740867 and proposed merge [1], only to have sabdfl reject the bug and didrocks mark the merge 'Disapproved'.

In my case I didn't discover the middle-click shortcut until today. I have a laptop, and hence I middle-click only when necessary. Having the quicklist entry would have been much better, mainly because its a more evident way to open a new window. Once Natty gets released, we don't expect users to come to bug reports or MLs just to find out the answer of: How do I open a new window? .

I feel that both the middle click shortcut and the quicklist entry should exist. I am linking the branch which was disapproved.

[1] https://code.launchpad.net/~bilalakhtar/unity/fix-740867/+merge/54497

Oops, I missed out didrocks' comment #15. Yes, patching desktop files for this seems the right way.