Common Desktop Environment: Style Guide and Certification Checklist

Dragging and Dropping a Multiple Selection

When the user selects more than one item to be dragged, the drag icon should change to indicate there is more than one item selected.

Some drop zones may be able to accept only a single item. It is not possible for a drop zone to differentiate between a single and a multiple set of items being dropped. The drop icon does not display the cannot pointer; instead the items should melt in and then be snapped back by the destination application. The snap back should be followed by an error notice that tells the user why the drop failed.

Recommended 

ef: 

Applications that accept only single items should reject all multiple-item drops. 

There is no consistent method to determine which of the selected items the user really wants to drop.