Weāve got a couple of Nextcloud instances that we maintain, with OnlyOffice, and a high profile user has complained about the click behavior in it. Specifically, heād like the web version to behave in a more Windows-like manner:
Single-clicks registering as SELECTING files,
Double-clicks registering as opening files in OnlyOffice for editing and/or viewing (depending on permissions), andā¦
Right-clicks registering as the usual context menu, no change.
Is there any way to realize this kind of interface in Nextcloud + OnlyOffice?
Iāve reached out to the OnlyOffice folks here, but this seems like something relevant to the āFilesā application within Nextcloud rather than anything else. Anyone know the link to the Github repo for the āFilesā app?
I use the Collabora Online application instead of ONLYOFFICE. But in all my Nextcloud applications, clicking once on the file name opens the application. For example, if you click on a PDF, it opens directly. Is the behaviour really as described? What is the behaviour with PDFs, for example?
You can try Wolkesicher Demo for comparison (thanks to Wolkesicher). Does your Nextclolud really have a fundamentally different behaviour? Collabora Online is also used here. But compare e.g. the call of PDF.
For test you can also register for Nextcloud Instant Trial. You get a 60 minutes account and you can use your link https://odoo.nextcloud.com/... multiple times to get an account at https://demo1.nextcloud.com or https://demo2.nextcloud.com . Unfortunately, a āpaywallā has also been introduced here. You need registration to be able to access the demo accounts.
Yes, but @Fortunate-Baggage wants the same behaviour as in Windows or Google Drive, where you can select a file with a single click and open it with a double click. I mean, I highly doubt theyāll implement this feature request anytime soon, if ever, as it seems like a deliberate design decision to me, but maybe itās worth a tryā¦
Then I must have misunderstood. I know Windows less. But when I surf the Internet, for example, I only click on a link once and it opens in the browser. And this is exactly the behaviour I expect from a web-based application like Nextcloud.
In Tiny File Manager (see demo) is the same behaviour. Perhaps Microsoft is the exceptions.
If itās not a really faulty behaviour of your own Nextcloud or browser, then itās unlikely to change much. Of course he create an issue, but most users wonāt see this as a bug. Most people would probably reject an adjustment to the click behaviour. And just because Microsoft use it doesnāt mean itās good.
Nobody says that, it would be a feature request, and there is no right or wrong in this case imho.
Windows Explorer in Microsoftās famous desktop operating system has double-click to open files by default, and many users have become used to this behaviour over the last 30 years. Google Drive also has it (probably for that very reason), whereas others like Nextcloud donāt.
Again, there is no right or wrong here, just different UX philosophies, and ideally a file manger app would offer both options and allow the user to change it, just as you can switch to single-click in Windows Explorer or many Linux file managers.
I currently relate to Nextcloud 28, since I got a customer running this version. And since it is not self-managed, but run as a service, I cannot update it myself atm. So Iām not sure if something got fixed in newer versions.
However I want to make a point, that click vs double-click opening of files in the files app is not a matter of personal taste. When a user tries to rename a file, eg by right-clicking the file and ārenameā, the filename becomes editable in a HTML form input field. In many cases, the next thing one wants to do is move the edit cursor to a desired position in the filename.
And how does one do that intuitively? Yes, by clicking inside the text input on the spot one wants the cursor to be. And what will happen? The expected cursor position? Nope, the freaking file opens in whatever app is configured for its MIME type and the filename editing is cancelled! So at this point its not much about design choices, personal preferences or operating systems. Itās just an interface bug resulting in unexpected behaviour.
In my view there are two possible solutions to this issue.
Fix the click-event listeners for renaming files, so a click inside the filename text input field results in setting the cursors inside that field and not resulting in opening the file.
Inside the āfiles-listā generally require an explicit double-click for opening files / enter directories and use a single click only for selection.
I personally think that the second solution would be the better one for several reasons.
Many (especially somewhat older) users are attuned to applying a double click to open files / dirs in file managers since at least the 1990s. This is true for almost all graphical file managers in almost all operating systems. Sure graphical touch interfaces (iOS, Android, etc) behave differently by opening anything on a single touch. Thats also why they are so awkward and inefficient to use in many cases. But maybe emplying double clicks in touch interfaces is a good idea too.
The interface of the file list would be much less ānervousā. Click, oups, image opens. Click, oh now Collabora Office. Click, next whatever app opens. People sometimes just click a file and select it without necessarily wanting to call an action. Let them click without immediately fireing up an app. And yes, there is a huge difference in betweeen clicking once on a chat in the talk app to open the convo versus directly opening an app to edit a file. In the first case one stays in the context of the talk app, but on the second case one is thrown out of the context of the file app and into the context of the app that opens the file. This is a huge difference in user experience.
Implementing a double-click-open interface for the file app, would open up some new possibilities for a better interface. For instance could a single click result in selecting the file and automatically open the file details sidebar. Further a single click on the filename itself could directly switch to editing the filename. Just to name two possible benefits.
Maybe Iām too late and its already fixed in versions > 28. Maybe the whole issue is still relevant. However, my two cents.
Thanks for the reply, considering newer versions @SmallOne.
Iāll try to push the provider of my customer to update Nextcloud. When I ordered the Nextcloud hosting, the provider told me, they would always stay one major release behind, which is okay. So currently, version 30 would be appropriate.
There is a reason why we got left click, right click, double click, one finger touch click, two fingers scroll, even three fingers swipe and more.
And reason is efficiency and a clear distinction of intent of action, which also equals ease of use in many cases. Maybe a little bit of learning, if any. But a surely much clearer interface.
If somebody told you, youre not allowed to turn right while walking anymore. Can you reach any destination? Yes, sure. You just turn left three times to get the same effect, as turning right would do. So it works. But is this efficient or comfortable?
And thats the way people got used to one tap touch interfaces. In fact its more or less a handicap people got used to.
And to make it clear again. Itās really only the file list, where I see the single click problem. Apart from that, everything works pretty well with single clicks.
Well, if you ask me, itās actually the other way around, and double-clicking is the handicap that people have gotten used to. Or to use your other analogy, double-clicking is like turning left three times to turn right, while single-clicking is the direct and more intuitive way to get where you want to go, which in most cases when interacting with a file or folder is to open it.
In fact, I believe that many of the old desktop user interface paradigms, especially in Microsoftās (in)famous operating system, were never particularly ergonomic or intuitive. People just got used to them and now find it difficult to adapt to different concepts, even if they are objectively more intuitive and ergonomic.
Either way, perhaps developers would be generally open to adding double-clicking as an option. I suggest searching for relevant GitHub issues and upvoting them, or opening a new issue if there isnāt one already.
Donāt put it all on poor old Bill G.! The Steve J. also copied from the XEROX P. !
Youāre right, Microsoft patented the ādouble-clickā at some point. But regarding so-called WIMP GUIs employing double-clicks, you should mention all of them: Windows, macOS, Gnome, KDE and heck yeah, even OS/2. So anybody using those, is naturally kind of used to their behavior.
But Iām not ignorant of the fact that many āmodernā users donāt use WIMP-interfaces at all anymore, but mostly rely on post-WIMP touch interfaces like iOS or Android. Here one could argue, those would have to ālearnā double-clicking or rather double-tapping for that matter, which would be an argument for your case.
However, we can only talk opinions here. Thorough UX testing with subjects of different backgrounds would be needed for an objective view. Even for opening an issue on the code base, some kind of proof to support my claim would be needed, I think ā and maybe I would be disproven anyway.
At least it looks like the current discussion helped my client with Nexcloud 28 at this point. After sending the current thread to their provider, I have been promised a Nextcloud update for this or next week. So thats good!
Yes, youāre right, and to be honest, I donāt have any studies at hand, so maybe my position isnāt all that objective after all
But still, Iād say that a single click is most likely what a first-time mouse user would naturally try to do to open a file, while the double click is something they would have to know and even practice to get right. I saw this first hand when my mom first started using a computer.
However, I can of course also see the benefits of using the single click to select things, and I have to admit that the single click to open files still feels wired to me in a desktop file browser, although oddly enough it doesnāt feel that way in a web browser, even when Iām doing file operations in Nextcloud.
Anyway, I am always in favor of options, so ideally we would have both in Nextcloud, so the user can decide which one to use. But of course this would mean more work for the developers, so Iām not sure what the chances are that such a feature request would actually be accepted and implementedā¦
