Left click should work on mouse button release, not mouse down

[Quizer]

When doing a left click, the moment when the mouse button released is the one that should count. At the moment, this is true for the time UI actions are executed, but not for the click location. If you click somewhere, drag the mouse over another UI element and release it, it will execute the first element. I feel it should execute the second element instead so it becomes possible to correct yourself if you misclick, or at the very least cancel the action.

I was also going to suggest left-click then right-click without releasing to cancel actions, but it seems this is already implemented (though I have not checked everywhere).

I've posted this to the feature request tracker, but if others feel differently about this issue, feel free to chime in.

[Sandro]

That case is known as "grazing click" and under several other names. As far as I know, UI design gurus recommend to keep a threshold for a dragging distance, assigning short-drag clicks to the beginning point and ingnoring long drags completely (unless UI got an object drag feature).

[Quizer]

That doesn't seem sensible to me for a strategy/tactics game like UFO:AI. It would make sense in an action game where fast reaction is more important than the exact click location and having a click fizzle because you moved the mouse ever so slightly could be bad for the player.

Here, however, speed doesn't really matter. Instead I'd rather avoid having to click out of the wrong sub-menu, like wanting to go to Research and missing ever so slightly and getting Production instead. I tend to subconsciously correct tiny misclicks like that by sliding the mouse after pressing the mouse button and before releasing it, and in my experience most UIs will let me correct my aim that way, or at least fail to register the click (the latter is far less noticable - the amount of mental effort required to get out of an accidentally accessed sub-menu is pretty big, compared to just repeating the same click). I think it would be nice to have here, too.

[Wolls]

When doing a left click, the moment when the mouse button released is the one that should count. At the moment, this is true for the time UI actions are executed, but not for the click location.

Have you checked Options / Gameplay -> Confirm Actions?  It'll treat movement the same as firing (it'll even show the path you'll take).  Not sure if it fixes the issue,  (more of a work-a-round)  and it'll mean double clicking.. but it should save you from moving on miss-clicks.

[Quizer]

I'm not talking about misclicks in the battlescape. I use Confirm Actions as a matter of course, so I can see the pathing before committing to a move. I'd probably be walking into aliens' reaction fire all the time if I didn't do that...

No, I'm talking primarily about menus and stuff, like clicking on Research, but missing slightly and getting Production. Moving the cursor after clicking down doesn't have any effect here.

[homunculus]

interesting, this must be the first time i have ever read some user complaining about the modern clicking standard not being applied.
the world might be changing, and the clicking standard might be becoming something the users expect, and complain about its violations.

but why are you suggesting differentiation of clicks by their orientation?
i would rather suggest treating left and right clicks equally.
otherwise the result would be conflicting behavior (worse than leaving both as is, in my opinion).

[Quizer]

I think the main problem is that it won't let me cancel out of a misclick in the geosphere menus. If I click on a button like 'Research', then drag the mouse away before releasing, I'm expecting to be able to avoid going to the Research screen. I may be wrong about many interfaces counting the final click location where you release the mousebutton, but I don't think I'm wrong about most contemporary interfaces letting you cancel out of a click by moving the mouse off the button before releasing.

Unlike what I wrote earlier, I think allowing the player to do that would be the best solution.

Also, I don't understand what you mean by the last bit. Where am I advocating treating left-clicks and right-clicks differently? I did say that turning a left-click into a both-click lets you cancel out of a click in many interfaces, and this is present in UFO:AI, too. But it's not good enough in this case, because it's not an intuitive action if only the click location is slightly wrong.