Option to use single-click opening in right-hand pane

Ideas for improvements and requests for new features in XnView MP

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Quisquose
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Mar 18, 2021 1:22 am

Option to use single-click opening in right-hand pane

Post by Quisquose »

Further to my question here: viewtopic.php?f=82&t=41710 (which Pierre confirmed was not possible) I would like to request a setting that gives users the option to use single clicks to open items instead of double-clicks. This option would make navigation consistent for users who use single-click in their OS (Windows Explorer etc.) as well as being more accessibility-friendly for people with RSI or disabilities (for whom repeated double clicking is difficult, painful, or impossible).

It would also make navigation consistent within XnView itself because currently folders are opened / expanded with a single click in the left-hand tree pane of XnView, but the exact same folders require a double click to open them if you use the corresponding folder icons in the right-hand pane of XnView.

This single-click option setting could be set to 'off' by default, so that out-of-the-box XnView behaves like previous versions, and existing users don't need to do anything to retain XnView's current behavior (but yet the single-click option setting will still be there for all those who want to use it).

For folder selection in single-click mode, I would suggest using the exact same selection method that XnView already uses for individual images (i.e. a checkbox at the top left of the icon that can be ticked or unticked). This selection method also matches how Windows Explorer does folder selection in single-click mode, and it is much better than the outdated and clunky mouseover / hover selection method that used to be used in old versions of Windows before Windows 7.

For best usability, you could make the single-click opening only apply when clicking directly on an icon itself in the right-hand pane (i.e. folder icon or image icon). Clicking on the text labels underneath an icon would just select the item without opening it (which is how XnView works at present). This would give an alternative larger 'target area' for clicking on, instead of having to use the small checkbox as the only way to select an item.
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