User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.5; Linux) KHTML/3.5.5 (like Gecko) Build Identifier: If you choose the detailed view in thunar one gets a list of filename (dark background) and details (brighter background). If you have enabled "single click to open items" no matter whether you click on the item itself (filename) or it's details, it gets opened/executed. In order to facilitate the selection of a single file, e.g. to delete it, open/execute should only happen, when the user clicks on the item (filename). If the user clicks on the details, i.e. on the brighter background, the item should just be selected. Reproducible: Always
Well, that's what single-click mode is all about. Click = open. If you want to select a file, move the mouse over it.
Not really since one that is a seperate feature and they should not depend on each other. One can disable the select on hover and should still be able to select a file without using the keyboard. A "rubberband" might have been a workaround, yet thunar does not provide one. Anyway, the filename and the meta-data are coloured differently, so it seems obvious that although they belog together, they are not the same. It's like a frame and a picture. If you have a look at konqueror for example, it works quite well, to have the filename as execute and the attached meta-data as selecting area. One might argue that the user expects that clicking the date or size column of a file would open it as well, but then I guess that most people click on the filename anyway, because that is the item and the meta-data just information regarding the item, but not the item itself.
I know this is a very old bug, anyway: since long ago Thunar has a rubberband and you can select files clicking on them while pressing Ctrl. Regarding the visual "hint", that the Name column is colored differently, now with gtk3 this is not the case anymore :)