Re: panel focus

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

Seth Nickell wrote:
> 
> Every person I've had upgrade to GNOME 2 has commented on the weird
> "panel gets lighter" thing to me.
> 
> Additionally, this has a not insignificant usability cost because it
> means when you use the panel your current focused window almost always
> ends up unfocused. This makes the panel feel like a window, which it
> shouldn't. I don't know how to describe this except that it makes the
> panel feel "heavy" somehow that it steals focus from windows.
> 
> Compare this to GNOME1 where focus is temporarily snatched from the
> window, but as soon as you are done it goes back to the window. Feels
> *MUCH* more natural.
> 
> Is there a reason mouse clicks should ever focus the panel like this?
> People who are seriously going to be using keyboard nav for the panel
> probably aren't going to be using mice. Can we only do this weird focus
> voodoo on keyboard activation? i.e. you can only focus the panel using
> the keyboard (or maybe mouse clicks *directly* on the panel with no
> dragging or anything).

Well, for one thing I don't believe that a mouse click on an applet
should focus the panel; e.g. the panel should only get "lighter" if
you click on the panel itself or keynav to it, not if you focus
a child of the panel.  If the current behavior doesn't match this, then
I think it should be reconsidered; I don't see a downside to your last 
sentence.

However I do think that if you click on the panel, your app window 
should defocus; otherwise we are violating the premise that the panel
is just a "special app" rather than a part of the WM.

> For non-disabled users this focus stuff is a significant net loss, so
> I'd like to find a solution that doesn't mess with normal users at all
> but still leaves the panel accessible. It seems restricting focusing of
> the panel to keyboard mechanisms would work.

I am concerned about the inconsistency implications of this, but as I
said
I don't have a problem with only giving the panel background "visual
focus
indication" if you click/nav to the panel and not a panel child.

-Bill

 
> -Seth
> 
> On Mon, 2002-03-04 at 01:44, Bill Haneman wrote:
> >
> > Seth said:
> >
> > >
> > > I agree. Focusing the first widget makes a lot more sense than
> > > highlighting the entire bar.
> > >
> > > -Seth
> >
> > I have to disagree with you here.  Besides the issue of what to do
> > when there are no applets in the bar, remember that in order to pop up
> > the context menu for the panel you must be able to focus the "panel
> > only"
> > and not a child widget.  If this requires "focus navigate to first
> > widget, then Ctrl-TAB to move up one level" (the alternative) then I
> > think
> > you have traded a small annoyance for a significant eccentricity, and
> > I don't think it's a good tradeoff.
> >
> > Calum, Padraig, and I talked about this at some length, and in the
> > end we felt that the need to focus containers was strong enough to
> > require an extra gesture to focus children.
> >
> > -Bill
> >
> > > On Sat, 2002-03-02 at 23:37, jacob berkman wrote:
> > > > On Sat, 2002-03-02 at 19:50, Seth Nickell wrote:
> > > > > You mean as opposed to the whole bar?
> > > >
> > > > yeah.  although i don't know what to do when there are no applets.
> > > >
> > > > i would guess the same as when there are no children of a ?box.
> > > >
> > > > jacob
> > > > --
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