Feature request: double-click should expand left sidebar items

[beyondcompute]

Hello! First of all, thanks for your work on this great software which is quite enjoyable to use!

Here’s a small feature request.

When applicable

When “Show All Databases” option is enabled for a connection.

What triggers the action

Double-click on a database icon in the left sidebar (where the list of databases is shown). Example of such an icon:

What happens now?

Database tables are shown in the main view. Nothing happens in the left sidebar.

What’s the desired outcome?

The list of the tables is getting shown in the left sidebar (same thing as clicking the tiny hard-to-aim arrow to the left of the icon does now).

How could this be done

1. Either the current behavior is replaced with a new one.
2. Or an option “Expand database on double click” is added to “Postico Preferences” so that users who are interested in the new behavior could enable it.

Thank you!

[jakob]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I think we're not going to implement this.

The sidebar is a standard macOS outline view. It behaves like all other outline views in macOS. I don't want to deviate from the default behavior.

You can expand/collapse selected elements in the sidebar with the right/left arrow keys if hitting the triangle is too difficult.

[beyondcompute]

I understand this reasoning! However

1. This is really frustrating to me! If I had some ability to tinker with the product (for example, create User Scripts, etc.) I would have definitely implemented that feature.
2. Everything I tried so far actually behaves differently than you describe:
   • Safari (bookmarks sidebar) expands on single click.
   • IntelliJ IDEA expands on double click (there might be option to expand on single click, I am not sure; I like the double click anyway).
   • Textmate. Does not really expand but it “navigates” inside the folder. So the effect is the same (you just have to click the tiny “Back” arrow to “un-expand” again).
   • Sublime Text (I just downloaded it to check). Expands on single click.
   • VSCode (downloading it takes a while nowadays!). Expands on single click.
   • Nova. Expands on double click. 😓

@jakob would you be so kind, to point a single software that does not expand folders on single or double click?

Again I am just asking for an option to make Postico behave like all the other tools I use. 😔

[jakob]

You make a good case. It looks like I'm still stuck in the way Apple interfaces used to work, but it looks like indeed almost all apps have moved away from the "standard" macOS behavior. There are still some sidebars that don't expand on double click (eg. Finder, Mail, Calendar don't expand elements on double click -- you need to click the triangle or the show/hide button). But I just checked, even Xcode expands items on double click.

I'm going to reopen this issue.

[martinjankoehler]

Thanks again for your suggestion, @beyondcompute !

This feature (Feature request: double-click should expand left sidebar items) is now implemented in the latest 2.0 beta and today's release 1.5.18 (download).

Closing this one now, please feel free to open a new one should any issues occur.

[beyondcompute]

@martinjankoehler Thanks for implementing this! 🙏 By the way, the selection now jumps in a bit of a surprising manner. I.e., I have a table selected, then I click a schema, the selection jumps to the “folder”/schema for the duration of the click and then when folder expands, the selection jumps back (to the unrelated table that was selected before). Now, when user is not expanding but is collapsing a folder, the selection stays on the collapsed folder afterwards. (So selection jump-back happens only while expanding a folder).