Hi, on latest Xubuntu LTS (16.04.1, Thunar 1.6.10) there seems to be some misleading behavior of Thunar's drag / rubberband multiple file selection when using Detailed List view. It's a known lacking feature of GTK (see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=138931 and https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1996) to start the drag on the empty area beneath the files, but according to the docs (http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/working-with-files-and-folders) it should work if started on a file/folder name - but it doesn't. I can only get it to work if I start the drag from any non-Name column - which is not very intuitive. Here's an image to illustrate the problem http://stuff.is-a-geek.net/random/Thunar1.png (image found at https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2326193). The current docs read: "You can also select multiple files and folders by using the mouse to drag a selection box over them. Note: If you are using View as a Detailed List in the Main Area, you must first position the mouse over a file/folder name (not in the whitespace) before dragging." I suggest the following clarification patch (changes in ALL CAPS): "You can also select multiple files and folders by using the mouse to drag a selection box over them. Note: If you are using View as a Detailed List in the Main Area, you must first position the mouse over a file/folder ROW (not in the whitespace BELOW) AND IN A COLUMN OTHER THAN NAME (SIZE, TYPE, MODIFIED DATE, ETC. WILL ALL WORK) before dragging."
In thunar 1.7 and master it's still an issue, however meanwhile it is possible to start the selection from the whitespace below the file-list in detailed view. This should not be fixed in the doc, but in thunar-code (or exo) --> moved The issues below are only about detailed-view. The other views seem to be fine. IMO it is ok to dont start selection if the cursor is on a file-icon, but instead use drag+drop. But as soon as it is somewhere else, selection should start. related: Once a file is dragged and the drag is aborted, the whole row is used as drag-source. This should not be the case.
Confirming that I'm also seeing this behaviour in Xubuntu 16.04 (Thunar 1.6.10) and that this was introduced after the version shipped with Xubuntu 14.04 (Thunar 1.6.3)
Still an issue in Thunar (1.6.15-0ubuntu1) Version table: *** 1.6.15-0ubuntu1 500 500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
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