Selection mode updates
Last week @snwh and I had a conversation about selection mode and I sketched a few things afterwards. I'm creating this issue as a record, in case we want to pick it up again.
Points that came up when we spoke:
- The check mark icon we use for activating selection mode isn't particularly obvious - we could use a label instead, like "edit" or "select"
- Changing the colour of the header bar when selection mode is active is possibly too much - it's a very dramatic change and the strong visuals maybe aren't warranted
- The actions feel a bit lost when they're at the bottom of the window in a separate bar. It's easy not to fully notice or engage with them.
I'm not entirely sure that we can have a single pattern for selection mode - the best approach probably varies from app to app, depending on how common it is to select multiple items. Looking at Photos as one test case, I wonder whether the following might be best:
- Single primary click opens the item
- Single secondary click shows a context menu
- Activating selection mode:
- Don't have a button in the header bar to activate selection mode
- When hovering an item, a check mark is shown on hover. Clicking this selects and activates selection mode.
- When selection mode is active, check marks are shown for all items.
- Show selection mode actions in the header bar instead of in an action bar