Drag and drop coppying? (SOLVED)

[toomuchcomputertime]

Does drag and drop coppying work in puppy? In the clips on www.rhinoweb.us it looks like it should, but for me it is just opening things. Also, can I cut and past such as other distros (namely ubuntu)... and Windows ? It is a big draw back having to type the location every time, not being able to copy multipull objects, and having to copy then delete instead of a simple three click procedure. Puppy does run fast on our 133mH with 64mb of ram though. Thanks for any tips.

[Béèm]

There should be no problem to drag and drop (copy or move) single or multiple items.
Just select them and hold them with the left mouse button to drag and drop.

[Turpin]

Not to the desktop though.
I'm stuck on XFCE. I love this window manager. With Thunar, you can "copy THEN paste" instead of having to type the destination location. And you can drag real files to the desktop. I became very used to this functionality in WIndows. I hope we can keep a good XFCE build of Puppy around. Nearly Office Puppy is great.

[Béèm]

Not to the desktop though.
I'm stuck on XFCE. I love this window manager. With Thunar, you can "copy THEN paste" instead of having to type the destination location. And you can drag real files to the desktop. I became very used to this functionality in WIndows. I hope we can keep a good XFCE build of Puppy around. Nearly Office Puppy is great.

Turpin,

There is no need to shout from the roof how nice XFCE is in every answer you make, in fact it is rather disturbing. So please don't do this anymore unless the question is about XFCE.

[toomuchcomputertime]

I am using Icewm, also, I do not quite understand the difference between window managers. I spent about 3 hrs before I finally got it installed. I have tried left click and drag, but it just opens the file, either in jwm or icewm. Is that dragging between ROX windows? Can you drag to the desktop, or rearrange icons? Some of my icons are doubled up, but I can't move them! Thanks Beem and Turpin for the replies.

[Turpin]

It is an important piece of information for those who expect desktop dragging. But, you're right. It took me long enough to find the differences between the window managers that I should have no time left to shout from the roof, so it's clearly not my place.

[toomuchcomputertime]

What is an important piece of information Turpin?

[Turpin]

Sorry. I'll watch myself from now on. I've never needed administrative intervention on any forums I've been a member of, and I wouldn't want to start with this one. I realize people have a lot of work to do without dealing with troublemakers.

[toomuchcomputertime]

Thanks for the clarification, are you saying that drag and drop does not work?

[Turpin]

I am using Icewm, also, I do not quite understand the difference between window managers. I spent about 3 hrs before I finally got it installed. I have tried left click and drag, but it just opens the file, either in jwm or icewm. Is that dragging between ROX windows? Can you drag to the desktop, or rearrange icons? Some of my icons are doubled up, but I can't move them! Thanks Beem and Turpin for the replies.

You can choose to not have singleclick execution. You can make it doubleclick like Windows. Go into options in ROx. And you can choose to have it ask you what to do with the file when either left ot middle dragging the file. I seem to remember it doesn't have an option to let you choose what to do when right-dragging, but I might be remembering wrongly..

[Pizzasgood]

I suspect you're trying to click to select the file, then attempting to drag it. Linux is mostly single-click rather than double click, so that strategy will generally fail unless you change the defaults.

Instead, either hold [ctrl] when clicking, or use the "lasso" selection method. Then position the mouse over one of the icons and press down the left mouse button. Holding that button down, drag the icons to the desired location, then release the button. Depending on which version of Puppy you use, after releasing the button, the files will either be copied to the new location, or a menu will appear asking what you want to do (copy, move, or link).
Note: In versions of Puppy without the menu (generally versions before I think 2.14 or so, but also any that I've made) you can drag with the middle button (or scroll wheel) to get the menu. This behavior can be changed in the ROX-Filer options (right-click the whitespace in a ROX-Filer window to get there).

For only moving a single file, you don't need to select it first. Just drag-and-drop.

Doing the "lasso" selection with the middle mouse button (or scroll wheel) will add/remove them to/from the current selection, similar to [ctrl]-clicking them.


There is an exception to all the above: the desktop. The desktop is NOT a normal location in the filesystem like in Windows and some Linux environments. It's just a text file (/root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin) that lists all the icons on it, what label to give them, and their coordinates. So even though you can place "icons" on the desktop, they only point to the original file (kinda like shortcuts).

Also, you can't drag to select multiple desktop icons. You could enable this by telling ROX-Filer not to pass desktop clicks to the window manager, but then you wouldn't be able to right-click the desktop to get the menu. However, holding [ctrl] will allow you to select multiple desktop icons, which can then be moved or removed wherever you want.

[toomuchcomputertime]

I just changed the settings, now dragging is opening the directory I am trying to copy to as well as the file I am trying to copy. Thanks for your patience.

[Béèm]

Sorry. I'll watch myself from now on. I've never needed administrative intervention on any forums I've been a member of, and I wouldn't want to start with this one. I realize people have a lot of work to do without dealing with troublemakers.

I am a member as you. I have no other administrative function.
I just have seen several times throughout the last days that you claim to go XFCE (well it looks like this) while the Original Poster didn't mention his environment and that such an advice isn't the answer to the problem exposed.
I understand you are enthusiastic about XFCE there is nothing wrong with it.
At times I use XFCE also and KDE 3.5.8 and IceWM.

The let's say 'campaign' for XFCE did me react.
So no hard feelings, but try to find out the OP's situation and then give advice.
Just my personal opinion.

[Béèm]

I wished ROX had tab support for more easier drag & drop.
Now two instances have to be open and in one way or another they never seem to be in the correct position for me to do an easy drag & drop.

For the rest Pizzasgood did say it all.

[toomuchcomputertime]

Thanks pizzasgood, I will look into that.

[toomuchcomputertime]

Thanks for putting this thread in the proper place, I am rather new at forums, and still trying to figure out where to put things. The drag and drop copying worked beautifully on QEMU (windows emulated) puppy, but it still is not working for me on any other versions of puppy. Once again, thanks for the replies.

[toomuchcomputertime]

I have tried several other versions of puppy (I have most versions downloaded), and none of them have had working drag and drop copying (windows like copying would be a HUGE plus), even when I configured the rox filer. Also, can I move desktop icons? Some of mine are doubled up, making it hard to click one and not the other. Thanks.

[bosley]

Hm, I don't remember any difference in arranging icons between windoze and puppy.
There was also no need in windows to select a file by leftclick for drag and drop(?).

When icons in windows were doubled I simply separated them with the mouse as in puppy.

In my opinion Linux isn't less intuitive than windows.

[toomuchcomputertime]

I don't know what the problem is, but if I try to drag icons on the desktop, they open the program (multiple times, killing the speed), if I try to drag files in rox, it opens the file, or the right-click menu. Just a note, in case it is relevant, the mouse is a Microsoft mouse with two buttons and a scroll wheel that doesn't work. Thanks for the response.

[toomuchcomputertime]

Here is a screenshot of my doubled up icons (you probably do not need this, but anyway...).

I removed the picture, I am glad we are not the only ones with 15 (or 14) inch screens!