Re: frontend redesign :-)

[Michael McClary <michael>]

(Minor spelling quibble:  "site", not "sight".)

Nice.  A floating button as shorthand for a set of selections.
(The description is so graphic that my fingers itch for a mouse...)

I think I prefer an explicit icon for the group to the Macintosh
idiom "mouse-down sorta on the selected group grabs the group".
That makes your cursor modeful, and I often have trouble figuring out
where a mouse-down will grab the group, and where it will deselect it.

Hmmm... "Click" on a singleton is "select/deselect", while "double click"
is "show/hide children".  For a set-of-selections floating button,
"double click" is "copy/move".  Is there any reasonable operation that
could be thought of as "open/close" for a set of selections?  Is
"(single) click" defined?  (Zero-length drag?  Deselecting a group
would make the group button vanish - not nice.)

Aha!  Double-click could be "nail it down here".  This opens space
AROUND it.  Double-clicking again it unnails it.  Now you need a
replacement for the copy.

How about double-click beside a floating button for "make a copy of the
button (and thus what it represents) appear.  Downsides:  Your cursor
becomes modeful again, and a near-miss could do the wrong thing.

Peahaps double-click in never-never-land could mean "Make a copy of the
floating button for the current designated-group here"  Single-click
without drag would make it go away, but another double-click would get it
back.  (Not nice.  You could always get rid of it by throwing it in a
trashcan-equivalent.)  This would have the advantage that you wouldn't
have to drag across multiple screens when copying, but the advantage
would be missing for move.  Hmm...

Naw, it's getting baroque.  Why a nail-down when you could just leave
it there?  (Letting go the button would open the space, dragging it
out and letting go would close it.)  Let's skip symmetry, and keep
double-click on a selection-shorthand button meaning duplicate.  (That
means you need the floating button even if only one thing is selected.)

(Apple seems to have punted the whole issue by using editMenuDuplicate
or command-d.)

	michael