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Bring Back a Proper Textual Drag and Drop


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Since moving to Mac OS X my biggest peeve, other than random slowness, is that when I go to drag a block of text the only sure-fire way of making it drag immediately is to aim the insertion cursor's tiny cross-hairs right on the black of a glyph and then start the drag. That is a crazy man's drag-and-drop.

 

Then, recently, I learned two things about drag-and-drop in Mac OS X. The first is that while that method works, an easier method is to just click and hold on the text for about a second and then move your mouse and drag it. Works every time, now.

 

However, that method is lacking as well in that it doesn't approach the pure usability of Mac OS 9's drag-and-drop of text in that all one had to do was click and move. No aiming, no delay. It just did it.

 

http://www.macgeekery.com/tips/customizati...l_drag_and_drop

 

In case something happens to the site, here's the full text:

 

Since moving to Mac OSi X my biggest peeve, other than random slowness, is that when I go to drag a block of text the only sure-fire way of making it drag immediately is to aim the insertion cursor’s tiny cross-hairs right on the black of a glyph and then start the drag. That is a crazy man’s drag-and-drop.

 

Then, recently, I learned two things about drag-and-drop in Mac OS X. The first is that while that method works, an easier method is to just click and hold on the text for about a second and then move your mouse and drag it. Works every time, now.

 

However, that method is lacking as well in that it doesn’t approach the pure usability of Mac OS 9’s drag-and-drop of text in that all one had to do was click and move. No aiming, no delay. It just did it.

 

Well, you can bring that back. When looking at Xcode’s “expert” preferences document, Apple gives the tip of setting NSDragAndDropTextDelay to a lower value (positive integer) to lower that dragging delay. A quick thought later and the following was proven to solve this problem once and for all programs:

 

defaults write -g NSDragAndDropTextDelay -int 1

 

This is setting the value in ~/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist for the user. To set it for all users of a machine, use this:

 

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist NSDragAndDropTextDelay -int 1

 

After doing either step, all newly-launched programs will get this preference and drag-and-drop will be immediate. The value is in milliseconds so if you want something shorter but not instant you can go with 100 (1/10th of a second) or so. This way when you go to re-select text that includes selected text it won’t move it, which is, it would appear, what the delay is all about. The default time is just a bit long for me.

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Why on earth did they give it delay, I agree it's crazy.

 

While we are on the subject of things that are crazy, sometimes when i pass over a finder window with a mouse, all the open finder windows jump to new locations and then when you try to get to one with the mouse they all jump back to where they were. Can anyone tell me how to turn off this crazy feature and if you live close to guy who invented it, can you slap him for me.

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Why on earth did they give it delay, I agree it's crazy.

 

While we are on the subject of things that are crazy, sometimes when i pass over a finder window with a mouse, all the open finder windows jump to new locations and then when you try to get to one with the mouse they all jump back to where they were. Can anyone tell me how to turn off this crazy feature and if you live close to guy who invented it, can you slap him for me.

 

 

Thant sounds like a hot corner, it's also replicated on one of the F9 - 12 keys, its to clear all application windows from the desktop, or to display what windows are open, try going into the dektop/dashboard system pref's and disable any hot corners, and also mash around with those fkeys they have great functions :(!

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Thant sounds like a hot corner, it's also replicated on one of the F9 - 12 keys, its to clear all application windows from the desktop, or to display what windows are open, try going into the dektop/dashboard system pref's and disable any hot corners, and also mash around with those fkeys they have great functions ;)!
Thanks that fixed it.
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