[dTal]

Wouldn't that break rubber band selection? In list view you can click and drag anywhere to rubber band select, but if the whole row were an active click region for the file, you'd be dragging the file instead. (I just tried this in PcManFM, and it does indeed behave this way).

I agree it's inelegant to have shorter file names be harder to select, but on the other hand they all have a great big icon; the text being clickable too is just icing.

[fomine3]

On Windows Explorer, dragging on filename to drag the item, dragging on empty space to select range, and click/doubleclick on empty space is same as on filename. I think this is reasonable.

[CornCobs]

TIL. I've always wondered how to select range besides starting from totally empty space (below the rows). Never imagined so much thought needs to go into this!