Swipe up to "mark for deletion"

[tomaszupl]

Guidelines

• I have read the guidelines to open issues

Use case

This is a "fast photo sorting (delete/keep)" feature. I have a lot of very similar photos and often, when I want to delete some, I struggle to chose the best one. I swipe left and right (a lot) and I try to chose the one that I want to keep. I tend to change my mind frequently. I wish I could just "swipe up" to "mark photo for deletion" and swipe up again to "un-mark it". Then, after a "session" I could see all the photos marked for deletion and delete them in bulk.
This is much faster than clicking buttons and you can preview photos before you delete them in one go.

Proposal

1. Add configuration to use navigation "swipe up" gesture to "mark for deletion" (rather than showing details)
2. An icon or "watermark" showing on photo which is "marked for deletion".
3. Swipe up to "mark for deletion" or "un-mark" - if photo is already marked for deletion.
4. Option "Show marked for deletion" only (filter option)
5. Option "Delete/Move to recycle bin marked for deletion"

Alternatives

None.

Additional context

There are apps like Pico or Declutr but they are not great and marking for deletion is done by swiping left/right. This is unnatural as usually, gallery-like apps, use left/right swipe for switching to next/prev photo.

[deckerst]

This is much faster than clicking buttons

I had alternatives to suggest, but I'd like to understand first why you think swiping is faster than tapping. Is it because the deletion itself is slow? Or because the action you want is in a menu? Otherwise, as a quick action, it's literally one tap away, at a distance reachable even with one hand.

[tomaszupl]

Hi @deckerst .
I think swiping is generally more natural with the phones. If you are holding the phone, the entire screen is an area for swiping gesture and you don't have to "aim" at the button. Swiping is even more practical as phone sizes grow - holding a big phone in your hand and using the same hand (thumb) to hit the button, often leads to falls (and broken displays). I think "swipe" is just convenient but it's not necessary swiping - it may be a double-tap (but this one is use to zoom in).
Another issue I see with buttons, it's usually related to multi-tap actions. You click the button (e.g. delete) and then, you have to click again "Yes" to confirm this. Or, as in app - if you click "star" icon - you have to click again to chose the action (rate, reject, etc.).
I think quick swipe up to "mark for deletion" - is very fast and quite foolproof - as it doesn't delete anything immediately - just marks the photo for deletion.

In short - swiping is fast and natural :) IMHO.

[deckerst]

I'm unlikely to implement your suggestion, as it is, but I'd like to point out a few things that may be useful to you.

Some full screen viewer quick actions have shortcuts via long press: tagging, rating, moving/copying, sharing motion photo, settings. For example, you can long press on the "rating" quick action button then slide to the number of stars you want to give and lift your finger to apply the rating.

The confirmation dialog for moving to bin can be silenced by toggling "don't ask again". This dialog can be shown again via Settings > Navigation > Confirmation Dialogs.

To select multiple items then review and decide on the action later, you could switch to the selection mode in the Collection page (via top right menu > Select, or just via long press on a thumbnail), then you can tap in the bottom right corner of a thumbnail to show the full screen viewer. There, instead of the regular quick actions, there is a single larger button to add/remove the item from selection. You can switch back and forth from the Collection and the full screen viewer. You can also increase or decrease the size of the thumbnails on the Collection page (via pinch-to-zoom) without losing your selection.

[tomaszupl]

@deckerst Thanks for a detailed response.
I'm quite open to ideas but what I think is most important for me:

• actual "sorting" does not trigger deletion. It just flags photos for "future deletion"
• photo can be marked (unmarked) for deletion with a single (quick) action (I'm open to ideas here. It may be swipe up, may be double-tap, maybe a tap on a specific area, or maybe even a phone "shake" ).
• photos marked for deletion can be displayed filtered and removed in single action (confirmation is quite useful here. E.g. are you sure you want to delete/move to recycle bin 124 photos?"
  That's all.

[deckerst]

Then you should try out the last thing I mentioned in my previous comment. The only remaining hurdle is whether that single button is easy enough: