Drag & Drop

From windows Commande Help

Drag & Drop

Select some files, click on them with your left mouse button and hold it down. Move the mouse pointer to the other file window or to any other application which supports drag & drop. The mouse pointer will change its shape during this process:

A slashed circle means that the application under the pointer will not accept a Drop, or that the dragged files have the wrong extension.

An arrow with three little squares attached to it means that the application is ready to accept the files. If you now release the left mouse button the files are accepted by the application.

If the mouse points to a subdirectory or an archive (in Windows Commander), a frame will appear around it. This means that the selected files will be moved/copied there if you release the left mouse button. If the whole target directory is full of directory entries, you can make a Drop to the target directory itself by releasing the files a little above or below the target directory.

The buttons View (F3), Edit (F4) and Delete (F8) can also be a target for Drag&Drop actions. The initiated actions are the same as if you just press the button(s) directly.

You can also drop files on the button bar. If you drag a file onto an icon, the corresponding program is started with this file (or the first marked file). If you drag a file on a blank space in the bar, or if you hold down the SHIFT key during the drop, the file will be inserted into the bar at this position.

If you have set Windows Commander to left mouse button selection mode, you can use the right mouse to Drag&Drop too. In this case, you will get a menu when dropping the files which allows to choose between copy, move, and create shortcut.

Examples for Drag&Drop:


- Drag the selected files from the root to the target directory. This will copy the files after confirmation by the user.

- Drag the files to a subdirectory to copy them there.

- Keep the ALT or SHIFT key depressed to move the files instead of copying them. This will be shown by a minus (-) sign in the drag cursor.

- Keep the CTRL and SHIFT key depressed to create shortcuts of the files instead of copying them. This will be shown by an arrow sign in the drag cursor. This will only work in Windows 95/98 and Windows NT new shell.

- Drag the files to an archive to add them to this archive.

- You can drag a single file to the print manager (Win 3.1) to print it. If the file is associated for printing with a program, this program will be loaded and the file is printed.

- Some other programs like Paintbrush, Write, Cardfile and a few Shareware programs also support Drag&Drop. Just try it out. (Caution with trashcans, they will delete your files!)

- You can drag a file to the task bar in Windows 95/98/NT, but you cannot drop it there. Instead dragging files to the taskbar will bring the associated program to the front, so you can drop the files there.

- You can now drop files on the Desktop, and even on Explorer folders (Win95/98/NT only).

- Drag a file to the command line to add its short (DOS) name to it. To add the long name, press Ctrl+Enter instead. Holding down Shift adds the name with full path.