Finder scrolling window annoyance on click

Those twenty items probably are opening because you ran a selection marquee over those twenty items inadvertantly. The marquee activates when you try to select any two opposite corners. If the color changes to the icon or icon text you know the item has been selected. Make sure before you double click, you only have one item selected.

Actually the selection marquee does exist in list view. I forget whether or not it actually is visible as a marquee, or just shows itself by the virtue that items get selected if you drag a marquee around a group of icons. I'm not at my Mac right now, but do remember that it behaves much like the icon view marquee in the fact that multiple items can get selected at once. You may want to slow down your mouse and/or mouse tracking in the System Preferences to see what is happening. If using any third party mouse software you might want to remove that to see if that makes a difference.

Something I've done is go to Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Appearance and select the highlight color as blue. That helps me see right away the items I've selected in list view when they are selected so I don't accidently double click all of them. The problem may very well be with your Logitech mouse. If you don't have an Apple mouse to test it with, contact Logitech support and see what they can suggest.

And you are right, in List view, no marquee is visible, but it is fairly obvious when you have selected multiple items if you set the highlight color to one you can see.

With all due respect, this issue is fairly well known and has generated a lot of complaints. It could be an intentional design decision in the behaviour of Finder that has unpleasant consequences in a specific situation, but I'm leaning toward considering it a bug.

The key point in reproducing the behaviour is to click on the whitespace (not the filename), of the last visible item in the "List view" window.

The behaviour was also present in Panther (though it was not as noticeable), and its introduction in fact corresponded to the unfortunate elimination of true marquée selection in "List view".

In "Column" view, clicking on the whitespace beside the last item selects the item. The "autoscroll" multiple item selection is only initiated when the mouse is moved downward from the point of the click, or after a delay of a couple of seconds. In "List" view, the "autoscroll" selection begins immediately just by clicking, without moving the mouse at all, and without delay (my main reason for considering it a bug or sloppy design). So if a normal "double-click" is initiated with the intention of opening just the last item, the "Finder" will invariably "autoscroll", select multiple items, and open them all.

Try submitting feedback here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/feedback/

Or, if you feel sufficiently motivated, a bug report:
http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/index.html

Edit: Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with Logitech, and can be reproduced using all-Apple hardware.

When I click on the white space of my list view outside of any column, I get no file selection whatsoever. When I click on the white space of my list view even with one item selected, it still does not select any other items. When I double click on the white space of my list view again nothing. This was just tested with 10.4.3 using an Apple keyboard and mouse on my Powerbook.

So it appears this is only reproducible if either the input preferences are corrupted, or a certain setting is selected under Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse, or Finder menu -> Preferences.

Not sure which it is, but it isn't under what I currently have selected.

Since it is a problem which existed in Panther, it obviously is not something limited to people whose Spotlight hasn't been indexed. But I do know that sometimes the Finder view will not show all the items in the folder if Spotlight is in the middle of indexing in the upper right hand corner. And I wonder if the said white space at least in Tiger might be an issue of you clicking what really isn't white space, but files that just haven't revealed themselves due to Spotlight not finishing indexing?

In column view, I can confirm, clicking on the white space to the right of any item in the column, selects that item.

Mind you, if you have shift key or command key selected you will get multiple items selected. If you click and drag in column view, you will get multiple items selected for each item you drag next to. If you click and drag in list view on the items themselves, you will get multiple items selected.

If you click within the column whitespace, of list view, yes, things do get selected, but if you click outside of any column in the white space, nothing gets selected. To tell if you are in column whitespace, use a ruler or something that is a straight edge, and align it with the column edge up on top of the list view. Each column is divided by a vertical line at its header. If you can't see that vertical line, use Universal Access to magnify your screen to be able to see it.

Hmm, that's interesting. I have seen the behaviour reproduced on various machines with G3s to G5s, running Panther and Tiger - it's actually been quite consistent, especially opening a folder such as ~/Library/Preferences in a smallish window. But if there is a particular configuration where the problem doesn't occur, then maybe I'll poke around some more...

Regarding the white space "outside of any column" - you're right. I had forgotten to mention that bit of UI inconsistency, another gripe I have about the OS X "Finder". In my opinion, it is rather poor GUI design to have two different classes of whitespace in the same window. I suspect its inclusion was necessary as a kludge because of the ill considered decision to eliminate true marqée selection in Panther - without the new class of white space, it is impossible to deselect everything using the single button mouse (still the default configuration despite the pseudo-two button mouse that now ships with new Macs).

Everything you say is true - if you take a straight edge to align with the column header, then the distinction is quite clear. But I think it's sad that this is what the formerly elegant, user-friendly Mac has come to - you need to hold up a ruler to the screen to know which of two behaviours you are going to get when you click on white space in a certain area toward the right edge of a window...

An equitable solution would be to either stretch the right edge of the window far enough that you have sufficient white space to see the difference. This can also be done by eliminating columns you aren't presently using in List View.

Right, I realize the Date Modified and other columns have that bug. Just make sure the last column on the right does not stretch all the way to the edge of the window, and the column header has a divider between the end of the last column and the scrollbar on the right. That will ensure you have enough whitespace to click in without selecting anything.

Of what are you guys talking? I'm so confused. And what worries me most is that 3 guys understand!!

BTW, why would anyone use List view? LOL.

SCB,
List view is quite valuable when comparing dates modified, versions, sizes, and other things not apparent by icon or column view. Sure you can always use the Get Info window to get that information, but that does not condense the information into one window. Not all of us have a 30" LCD to spread out our Finder windows.

As you might have remembered in Mac OS 9, you did have lighter and darker shading to look at the various columns side by side and tell the columns apart. In Mac OS X, that advantage is gone. That said, when you click and drag inside a column of List View that has data, anywhere within its white area, it treats it as selecting that field, and hence the item being selected. If you click outside any field with any data, then you don't have the selection happen. This is more apparent when using third party mice as many can be programmed to do multiple functions, or don't have as easy control of their selection double-click functionality once you use their mouse drivers as opposed to Apple's. Though if you have your Mouse settings too sensitive, or are not able to determine when you are clicking inside a Finder list view's filled data column, you may accidently select an item when not meaning to. And if your selection color is not visible enough, and you go and double click, you may have items selected and end up opening multiple items at once. The lack of a marquee on list view makes it all the more frustrating for some when selecting multiple items because you may not know how far you have drag selected items until they are selected. I've used the system long enough to get used to it, so it doesn't seem all that bad. But for some just starting with Mac OS X the behavior can be surprising.