Multiple File selection for KDE

Greetings All,

Although I consider myself a logical person, I cannot for the life of me figure out
what the logic Dolphin uses for selecting multiple files.

If I am viewing a large number of files, I want to select a subset without having
to click each file one-by-one. The way things USED to work in KDE 3.5:

Select the first file. Move the mouse to the last file, press SHIFT while clicking the
file, and all the files starting with the first one selected up to the last one are selected.

In KDE4, performing the above technique produces a random selection. Sometimes,
the desired results occur. Frequently, the first few files are deselected. More frequently, files BELOW the last one are highlighted, and only a few above stay selected.

Can some kind soul tell me what logic is used for multiple file selection? Is there a better way to select a range of files?

Thanx in advance.

Rich

So I have not noticed this behavior in KDE. I am using KDE 4.4.4. You did not say which version you are using. Perhaps you have come upon a bug of some sort that needs to be given to KDE? In the old days of KDE 3.5, I used Konqueror instead of Dolphin and it still exists, if you have it installed. The command to use Konqueror as a file manager is:

kfmclient openProfile filemanagement

and as super user you can use (or as an icon, just set to run as root):


kdesu kfmclient openProfile filemanagement

Another interesting thing to do is to run Konqueror as root with sysinfo, which is the My Computer icon on the desktop, but run as root. This actually yields slightly different memory usages.

kdesu kfmclient openProfile webbrowsing sysinfo:/

Thank You,

It does still work the way you describe
As already mentioned. What version of openSUSE and kde4?
Is this a old /home you are using?

I encounter the sameproblems as @richardrosa. openSUSE 11.2 and KDE 4.3.5.

And it happens in both Dolphin and Konqueror. I am unable to foresee what will happen when I click around.

May be I should add that I have not enabled the double click “feature”.

I am using Suse 11.3, and KDE reports version 4.4.4. A new /home directory was created when I installed 11.3.

I did try upgrading to 4.5 at one point in an attempt to fix this and some of the many other vexing KDE problems.
Unfortunately, Dolphin in 4.5 kept crashing, so I moved the system back to 4.4.

Rich

I tried to do a video to see if this is what you mean
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/file-select.mpeg

I am afraid I can not generate such a nice movie (at least I do not know how), but I clicked around somewhat and came to the following conclusion.

First I use the “details” view of such tools, thus all items are one above the other and I do not have to bother if items between two items should be selected according to following rows, columns or within a rectangle.

. When I click an itiem it is selected and it opens;
. when I Ctrl-click, it is selected;
. when I Shift click another one, it and all in betweens are also selected.

IMO the issue is simply getting used to the “single click opens” behavior when the User is coming from an environment when single click means “select” and a double-click means “open.”

If you look at it that way, then any workarounds should be more or less obvious…

As hcvv notes, the first step is to somehow establish a starting point, but you don’t have to left click a file (which by default opens), you can instead rt-click to open the context sensitive menu, then click on open space somewhere (careful not to click on a clickable object) to close the context sensitive menu but leaving the file selected.

After establishing the starting point, then you can use either the CTL-CLK or SHFT-CLK methods to individually select or select all files between.

Also, it should be noted that the “lasso” method works in various situations (eg both File Manager and Folder View Widget), start your click on an empty space, then without lifting your finger, drag diagonally across various files to select all, then lifting your finger to complete the click action.

Also, as noted, file selection generally should depend on how the files are displayed. If behavior is still counter-intuitive, then you may be looking at something I’m not.

HTH,
Tony

@tsu2 This is a rather good description and clarification of my observations. Thank you.

I can aknowledge that th “lasso” method works in Icon View, but not in Details View, which seems not illogical to me.

This is the gist of what I am trying to do, but I am attempting this in Details view. I should also add that I have been using the “+” icon on the
first item to select it. Sometimes it works as expected (about 50% of the time). It always selects a range, just not the range I expected.

Rich

Rich

The + - should always work. Does for me.
And I always get the selection I choose

I just double-checked, on my machine using Dolphin, I can lasso in Details and Column view as well.

Tony

You are right! But it took me some time to find out how. The starting point should be somewhere at the right of a filename. Maybe there are more places where it works, but when you start right in a file name, it thinks that you want to drag that file somewhere.

Everything needs some try and error and learning :wink:

I still have no idea what logic is being used when I select multiple files the way I have been.

However, thanx to those that replied, I have tried using ctl-click to select the first item (not the “+”).
Selecting the first item using this method seems to reliably highlight the items I want.

BTW, I have the same issues with Konqueror as well, so this would appear to be KDE weirdness.
I have experienced this same issue on a totally different machine (AMD based desk machine vs Intel based Laptop).
I’ve upgraded to KDE 4.5.3, but there is no change in behavior. The problem does NOT exist with Gnome/Nautilus.

Thanx to all for your advice.

Rich

This problem was driving me crazy, too. Turns out that my problem was that I have gotten in the habit, in detail view, of clicking on icons rather than filenames because, on Windows, when you click on a filename it sometimes opens a renaming text box.

On Opensuse 11.4, it looks like when, in detail view, you click on the second icon in a range, it adds that one file to the current selection regardless of whether you are holding the shift key. The solution for me is to to use the shift key and click on the filename, not the icon, when selecting the second file in the range. This seems to work predictably every time.

I have found that the “+” only expands/collapses the tree.

Besides what I originally posted (which I consider still most reliable), it should be noted that there is a <big difference> between clicking on the object icon at the beginning (left side) of the entry which is typically either a folder or file type vs clicking on the main part of the object name.

So, for instance you can select a range of files as follows:
To move a range of files to a new location, first open a “Split” pane to the projected destination.

<Assuming that no previous object is selected> which typically is only when you iniitially open Dolphin, you can click on the leftmost icon of the “start” file, then do a “click-hold” on the <body> of the end file in the range, then drag the entire range to a new location in the “Split” pane.

HTH,
Tony