Re: [Usability] Auto-raise windows while drag-drop engaged?

[Kalle Vahlman <kalle vahlman gmail com>]

On Mon, 11 Oct 2004 06:40:58 -0400, Dave Ahlswede
<mightyquinn charter net> wrote:
> I'm just wondering, has it ever been considered to have
> unfocused/obscured windows pop up to the front when you hover over them
> while dragging something? Additionally, the window might be lowered to
> its previous position when the mouse leaves it.

There is probably at least as much situations where this would result
in unreachable windows as there are without it (read: it's not worth
the hassle of windows popping up and down when you don't want them
to).

Consider a smaller window on top (and fully inside the frame) of a
larger window. You drag from a third window or even from the bigger
window, if the only criteria is the position of the mouse.  Now what
happens is that the small window is fully visible at the moment you
start the drag, but there's no way you are going to get a chance to
drop to that small window if the big one always pops over it. A
waiting time of x milliseconds is not going to erase that problem,
although it probably would lower the change of that happening. But it
can still happen, and at least personally I would shoot the programmer
after just one incident if I got the chance ;)

A far better solution (well, I'd rather say enhancement, the actual
problem stays) would in my opinion be what someone proposed in the
discussion you mention:

When dragging, make the second button (or any button for that matter)
raise the window under the mouse pointer.

This way, the action is implicit and as such avoids the confusion of
unintentional (automatic) window movement.

Implementing this is another thing then, it should preferrably happen
in all apps (so probably metacity is the place for this), but I don't
know how easy that would be,

Any comments from someone who knows the hows and whys of window managers?

-- 
Kalle Vahlman, zuh iki fi