Story
Magnolia allows me select a single item or multiple items easily by using the mouse, the keyboard or touch gestures. All input methods are interchangeable.
Magnolia also highlights an item, if the mouse or the keyboard focus is currently above a selectable item - it is not highlighting items, which may not be selected at all.
Remarks on different characteristics of input methods
Note that each of the three supported input methods - mouse, keyboard and touch - has its own characteristics, and not all visual feedback and interaction possibilities are supported by each.
In particular, you may focus on an item with the keyboard or by hovering the mouse over it. This is often visualized by softly highlighting the item. Touch interfaces, however, do not support moving the focus in the same intuitive manner. By touching an item, you already interact with it and thus you always move both focus and selection to the item. Consequently, Magnolia only supports item selection on touch devices.
On the other hand, selecting an item is as easy as clicking on it with a mouse or touching it. Selecting multiple items is also easy and intuitive, if you provide checkboxes next to the items. For mouse and touch, you thus have two ways to select items: you either touch or click the item, or you mark its checkbox. When using the keyboard, however, the clearest way to handle selection is to unify both interactions, since you always have to at least press a key to select an item. Magnolia thus also always toggles an item's checkbox on selection when using the keyboard.
If any of this is not entirely clear, please refer to the more detailed explanations and the matrix in the paragraphs below.
Description of desired behavior
Focus an item
An item is focused on hovering the mouse over it or by moving the keyboard focus on the item using one of the arrow keys (UP, RIGHT, DOWN, LEFT). Focusing an item mainly visually highlights it indicating that the item could also be selected.
When the same item remains focused, details on it are shown after a delay in any enabled and visible item details view elsewhere on the interface. The reason for the delay is to prevent the interface from changing too rapidly on quick focus changes, to keep it responsive and to prevent high load on the server.
Select a single item
A single item may be selected by clicking on it or touching it or by hitting the SPACE bar when it has the focus (object selection). If an interface supports selecting multiple items, it shows a checkbox next to an item. Thus, alternatively, this checkbox may be checked to select the item (toggle selection). In both cases, a strong visual marker around the item signals its selection.
So, while an item may be selected without checking its checkbox if you use mouse or touch input, its checkbox is always toggled if you select the item using the keyboard.
In addition, any visible and enabled view for item details will refresh immediately and show additional details on the just selected item.
Select multiple items
To select multiple items, you repeatedly select single items using their checkboxes until all your items are selected (toggle selection). Alternatively, use a rubber band rectangle when using a mouse to select the items (object selection). Note that in the latter case, the checkboxes of all selected items are also checked as soon as you release the mouse button. A previously selected group of items is first deselected before the newly defined group becomes selected by a rubber band.
Any visible and enabled view for item details will refresh immediately and show additional details on the set of selected items (e.g. summary of all sizes, number of selected items, etc.).
Select and deselect all items
Views supporting the selection of multiple items shall also always offer an additional checkbox to toggle the selection of all items (visible or invisible) in the view. Checking it first selects all items, checking it again de-selects the items.
Indicate number of selected items
Any view supporting the selection of multiple items shall indicate the total number of currently selected items.
Open an item for editing or further inspection
By double-clicking or touble-tapping an item or hitting the Ctrl/Command-Enter key on a focused (see #Focus an item) or selected item (see #Select a single item), a separate window opens showing an edit or inspection view of the item depending on the permissions of the logged in user.
Drag and drop an item
Clicking on an item and starting a drag automatically selects the item and ticks its checkbox, in case it exists - the item is both object selected and toggle selected. During drag, the item being dragged is replaced by a place holder image. The interface provides constant feedback where the dragged item can be dropped by rendering an insertion bar and highlighting other items which may act as drop targets.
Drag and drop multiple items
If multiple items are selected, dragging one of the selected items initiates a drag of all selected items. Again, the items are replaced by a place holder image and object highlighting and insertion bars are rendered during the drag (see #Drag and drop an item).
Note that if multiple items are toggle selected and you start a drag on a single item with its checkbox unchecked, that object is added to the other selected items for the drag and its checkbox is immediately ticked as soon as the drag starts to clarify this behaviour.
Removing a selection
If you click on a list or tree view offering item selection and you do not click on a selectable item, all previously selected items are deselected. The items are also deselected if you toggle the "select all items" checkbox to first select all, then deselect all items (see #Select and deselect all items).
Deselect a single item
You may deselect a single item by unchecking its checkbox or clicking on it while holding down the Ctrl/Command modified key. When using the keyboard, move the keyboard focus on the item, then hit SPACE - hitting SPACE thus toggles a selection. On a touch device, you may only uncheck an item's checkbox to deselect it.
If an item is deselected, all other selected items remain selected.
Executing an operation on selected items
If a view allows to select items, it always also offers operations to be executed on them. Selecting one or multiple items enables only those operations, which are defined on the list of selected items. For any view showing operations, it should be visually very obvious, which operations are currently available and which are not.
Please note that it is not acceptable to simply attempt to execute an operation and to return an error if it is detected that the operation has been undefined for one of the selected items. Errors should only be returned if executing an operation actually fails.
It is highly desirable that an operation is executed atomically on multiple items as this is expected semantically and allows properly supporting the undo functionality we plan to introduce with 5.0.
Solving conflicting usage
Allowing both object selection and toggle selection of items may result in a confusing interface. Magnolia solves this by actually implementing hybrid selection.
In short, this means:
- when only selecting a single item, ticking its checkbox or simply selecting it using a click or tap doesn't make a difference
- when multiple items are selected, starting a drag on a previously unselected item ticks the checkbox of this item and adds it to the set of already selected items - the drag includes all items.
- when multiple items are selected and you select an item by clicking or tapping on it, the preview only shows the details of the latter.
- when multiple items are selected and you open any item (selected or not), only that item is opened. The other items remain selected, though, as does the just opened item.
- when executing an operation, it is always executed on all currently selected items, whether they have been selected by ticking their checkbox or not.
- a preview is always shown on all selected items, whether they have been selected by ticking their checkbox or not.
Summary
|
Mouse |
Keyboard |
Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
Support focussing item without selecting it |
yes, on mouse over |
yes, when shifting kbd focus |
no |
Supports selecting single item without marking its checkbox |
yes, on click |
no |
yes, on touch |
Supports selecting single item by marking its checkbox |
yes |
yes, on hitting SPACE bar |
yes |
Supports selecting multiple items by marking their checkbox |
yes |
yes, on hitting SPACE bar on every item |
yes |
|
|
|
|
Supports executing an operation when selected by checkbox |
yes |
yes |
yes |
Supports executing an operation when selected, but not by checkbox |
yes |
no |
yes |
|
Mouse |
Keyboard |
Touch |
|---|---|---|---|
Focus an item |
move mouse over it |
move keyboard focus using arrow keys |
(not supported) |
Select an item |
click it or tick its checkbox |
move keyboard focus, then hit SPACE |
tap on it or tick its checkbox |
Deselect an item |
click it while holding Ctrl/Command, or |
move keyboard focus, then hit SPACE |
uncheck its checkbox |
Open an item |
double-click it, or |
double-tap it, or |
select it, then it Ctrl/Command, or |
Mockups
Tree view - single item
Tree view - multiple items
List view - single item
List view - multiple items