Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 18076
Mouse doubleclick behavior could be enhanced, more consistent
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:38:43 UTC
Presently: (1) Doubleclicking a word with the mouse selects only the alphanumeric characters in the word itself (no whitespace or punctuation). (2) If a user selects a word using doubleclick, then cuts (Ctrl-X or Scissors icon), OOo also cuts exactly 1 (unselected) space to the LEFT of the selected text, provided at least 1 space exists. (3) If a user selects a word using doubleclick, then presses the backspace (delete) key on the keyboard, OOo deletes (not cuts) the selected characters only, leaving any spaces to the left and right. (4) Tripleclicking selects a full line (not paragraph) of text. Proposed changes to the UI: (1) Doubleclicking a word with the mouse would select the alphanumeric characters within that word, along with any space characters that follow. Preferably, this would be language-dependent. For languages that read left to right (such as English), spaces to the right of the word would be selected; for languages that read right to left, spaces to the left would be selected. (2) Cut (Ctrl-X or Scissors icon) would only cut those characters that were selected (highlighted). (3) Ideally, the effect of Doubleclick and Tripleclick would be customizable. The default actions would be: Doubleclick = select word (alphanumeric characters) plus any spaces that follow. Tripleclick = select paragraph (rather than line). Advantages of the proposed changes: (1) The behavior of Cut would be more intuitive. Normally, the user expects only highlighted (selected) text to be cut. If a space is also to be cut, then it makes sense to highlight that space upon selection. (2) Cut and Paste would be more reciprocal. If the user doubleclicks a word, then cuts (Ctrl-X), then pastes (Ctrl-V), without moving the cursor between the operations, the result is to get back where one started. However, when one tries this in OOo at present, these result is that one space is lost. For example, doubleclick "sample" in the sentence: "This is a sample sentence." Cut, then paste, without moving the cursor. Result: "This is asample sentence." (3) Mousing behavior would be more consistent with keyboard behavior. At present, Ctrl-Shift-LeftArrow and Ctrl-Shift-RightArrow select the alphanumeric characters of the word and any spaces to the right. The proposed change would make doubleclick more compatible with this behavior. (4) While selecting lines of text is sometimes useful in programming, in word processing it is rare that the user would want to do this. Typically, it would make more sense for the user to select a sentence or paragraph. The simplest, most useful function of a tripleclick would be to select the current paragraph. (In an ideal world, tripleclick would select a sentence and quadclick a paragraph. However, automatically determining the start and end of a sentence is a nontrivial task.) (5) The overall UI behavior would be more like that of MS Word. Since many OOo users are accustomed to using MS Word, this is also a decided plus. Comment: I am willing to help implement these changes, provided others agree that these would be advantageous. Thanks!
SBA: Reassigned to Bettina from the User Experience team for consideration.
I agree that the mouse triple left click should select an entire paragraph instead of just a line of text. As a writer I often need to move whole paragraphs of text as I edit a document, sometimes it would be helpful to have a way of selecting a sentence, almost never is selecting a line useful. The way MS Word implements this feature is as follows: With mouse pointer within a paragraph: -Single click positions cursor at the desired location -Double click selects the word plus the space to the right (but not punctuation if the word is followed by a punctuation mark instead of a space.) -Triple click selects an entire paragraph. With mouse pointer in the margin: -Single click selects an entire line -Double click selects the entire paragraph -Triple click = select all I mention this not because OOo Writer needs to be a me-too application but because ease of moving text for editing is key to being productive as a writer and hence this is an essential enhancement. This has also been mentioned in issue# 12861
#1 - 3 are still present in 1.9.108. I understand why all of the behaviors are as is, but #2 is really bizarre. Cut then Paste doesn't return the document to how it was, but then again you can just press ctrl+z. I think I like #1 & 3the way it is, because when I cut a word I want that space to be removed too. #4 is fixed in 2.0. I am going to mark as confirmed for an RFE, but I would suggest if you want this to be seriously considered that you morph this into three issues instead of one as you are making 3 requests.
To grep the issues easier via "requirements" I put the issues currently lying on my owner to the owner "requirements".