[Qgis-developer] Possible improvement | Actions on right click

[Alister Hood]

Hi guys, 

> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 01:46:07 -0700 (PDT)
> From: R?gis Haubourg <regis.haubourg at eau-adour-garonne.fr>
> To: qgis-developer at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Qgis-developer] Possible improvement | Actions on right
>         click
> Message-ID: <1363250767637-5040280.post at n6.nabble.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>  
> Hi,
> +1 with Mathieu, actual action button needs to first choose an active layer
> and then to choose which action to execute on click.
>  
> Using right click might be intersting since it could be always available,
> whatever the tool selected.
> Another possibility is Mapinfo 's behaviour that we copied in Hotlink Plugin
> (in repository).
>  
> User has to choose hotlink tool (a thunder icon). On flyover, a tooltip show
> up with the list of all action titles located under the mouse cursor ( +
> display field info), for ALL layers.
> On click, a dropdown listbox shows up allowing to choose what action to
> execute.
>  
> I agree that starting having a right clic contextual menu would be better
> since user do not have to change his current tool. 

In this case I think rather than having a context menu dedicated just to layer actions, it might be better eventually to have a more general context menu, with actions in a submenu.

> The downside, it will
> give the habits of right clicking everywhere (composer too) and we should
> have a global discussion about contextual menus in QGIS, so that we have a
> consistent UI behaviour everywhere.

I think context menus would be good everywhere ;)

For most people when a right-click does anything different from opening a context menu they are surprised - assuming they even notice what it did.  If the right-click function is moved into a context menu then they will know what it did, even if they didn't read the manual. 

I guess getting rid of all direct right-click functions might upset some existing users, because an extra click will be required for the same function, but it will of course allow more functions to be added.

IIRC I think there is a recent proposal for context menus in the composer - in a ticket or pull request for paste to original coordinates.


Regards,
Alister