From: Jonas Jørgensen <jj qio dk>
To: Brian Fleeger <brianfleeger yahoo com>
Cc: t_w_ freenet de; gnome-shell-list gnome org
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 2:13:46 PM
Subject: Re: Global menubar (was Re: #4 on ToDo list: make the top panel prettier)
2009/1/27 Brian Fleeger <
brianfleeger yahoo com>:
>>>You seem to assume click-to-focus.
>>>How would you deal with focus-follows mouse?
>>
>> You are correct in that I was assuming most users would be using
>> click-to-focus. However, even with focus-follows mouse, where the focus
>>
automatically shifts to whichever window over which the mouse moves, the
>> menu could still keep up with the changing active windows. In that sense,
>> it would be just like click-to-focus behavior.
>
>You're forgetting one thing: If the menus would change with the focus
>when using focus-follows-mouse, then when I'm working in a window in
>the lower right corner, accessing the menu becomes a game of having to
>avoid any other window on my path to the menu, otherwise that would be
>focused and the menu would switch. Clearly not acceptable.
>
If one had to wait until the window is clicked, then it wouldn't be focus-follows-mouse anymore, it would be click-to-focus. And that would clearly turn off a lot of programmers to the UI.
The solution I would suggest is an alternative to focus-follows-mouse called stop-focus (
http://sawfish.wikia.com/wiki/Stop-focus). It was written for the old Sawfish windows manager, and I don't know if it could be ported as is. Even if that specific program cannot be used, its behavior is the only solution I see to this problem.
While the mouse is moving, window focus does not change; it only changes when the mouse stops on another window. This solution completely avoids the sticky matter of whether or not to use auto-raise for windows (which can completely ruin a carefully arranged layout), so a user can still use auto-focus and leave the active window in the background. How long the mouse has to be stationary before window focus shifts should be user defined.
