Re: [Ayatana] Focus follows pointer (Was: Re: Understanding the menu problem.)

[Philipp Wendler <ubuntu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Am 31.05.2011 19:27, schrieb Ed Lin:
> Truth be told, I never used focus "FFP" more than a few times out of
> curiosity. I'd be interested why people turn it on and how it helps
> them with their workflow.
> 
> In GNOME there are two relevant settings. One immediately focuses the
> window beneath the pointer. Additionally you can make the window rise
> after a given time interval. (See System Settings -> Windows).
> 
> To me the latter doesn't really make sense, raise on click will be
> faster except when you set it to "0.0" in which case, especially on a
> busy desktop it will get in your way.
> Without the rise feature enabled you only get focus which doesn't help
> you with mouse interaction if the desired  controls are behind another
> window. I guess it could make sense for keyboard shortcuts but then
> you'd have your hands on the keyboard and could use even faster
> keyboard combos to activate the desired window.
> On really busy workstations you probably don't have all windows
> visible all the times so the new Unity spread view should increase the
> efficiency even if ffp was completely removed.
> 
> I guess this leaves tiling layouts where all windows are visible all
> the times. In this case all I can say: You really should use a realy
> tiling WM and if you really care about speed and efficiency best thing
> you could do is throw out your mouse and learn the keyboard controls.
> 
> Well that's how I see it. Please enlighten me!

I use focus-follows-mouse, and I find it very annoying when I have to
work longer times on machines that don't have it enabled. I don't use
the "raise window" feature.

I have several use cases where I work with several windows. One is for
example working with an IDE, but repeatedly running the compiled program
from a terminal (often jumping back to the IDE while the program is
still running, jumping back when it has finished etc.). Another use case
is writing LaTeX documents in the terminal, jumping to the document
viewer to view the compiled document, or to the browser or to some other
open document repeatedly. A third use case would be to write an email
while looking at sources (e.g. a browser window). In the last case, the
typing task might actually be the secondary task, for which I only need
a window that receives and stores the typed letters.
These use cases make up for almost all of the time I use the computer at
work (which is actually almost all of the time I am at work).

This means that often I have windows where I want to follow whats
happening, and were I need keyboard interaction, but that I don't need
to bring to the front just to bring back the previous window a few
seconds later. So I have windows that usually overlap partly. This saves
space compared to tiling, and still enables a fast multi-window
workflow. I also don't want to use a tiling wm because it might not be
available on all the machines I use and it often feels inflexible for me
(all my windows are of different sizes normally).

So in general my use case is to rapidly switch to another window and
work there with the keyboard. With FFP, I reach to the mouse, but I
don't actually take it into my hand as I would have to in order to
click. Instead I just give it a little push in the right direction,
immediately withdrawing my hand. Sometimes the mouse is still moving
although my fingers are not longer touching it. This is a very fast
interaction, significantly faster as if I would have to click after
moving the mouse. It is possible, because as windows are pretty large
compared to other UI elements, the pointer will land there without
really aiming.

A further advantage is that I don't have to think about where in the
target window I might click without producing unwanted actions which
saves further time (and more important: saving my brain from thinking
about something that has nothing to do with what I want to accomplish).

I don't use the keyboard to switch windows, because I find it annoyingly
painful to cycle through all the open windows. Or is there a keyboard
shortcut for "please focus that terminal window right here on the left
bottom corner of the screen"? Because that is what I want when I am
working with multiple open windows. Using the mouse with FFP, I can
immediately transform that thought into an action, without having to
think further, because the mouse movement will directly correspond to
the movement of my attention (and my eyes) on the screen (by using FFP,
I can be sure that the cursor is currently somewhere in the window I was
working with). An example: If I work in a window on the right side of my
screen and something in a window on the lower left corner of the screen
draws my attention and I want to respond (let it be a chat window, or a
terminal were a program asks a question etc.), I can do with the mouse
through my hand the exact same movement that my eyes also did: from
right to lower left. No further thinking, no further aiming, no clicks,
just a slight push with my hand.

Using the keyboard to switch windows, I would have to press Alt-Tab,
scan the window switcher for the location of my target window (which
appears at a new position each time(*)) and press Tab several further
times if I am unlucky. And identifying the target window can be really
difficult if you have several similar windows open (e.g. terminals).
Using Alt-Tab without the window switcher or using some Expose-like
feature is also disturbing as the image of the screen completely changes
several times during the process (so I have to re-orientate several
times, but I don't want to do this if the window I need is already
"right there" in front of my eyes, and I would just need to transfer the
focus).

So I think I am faster using the mouse to switch to a visible target
window than with the keyboard. In some of my use cases above I would
anyway use the mouse as the primary input device in one of the two
windows I am working with, so there is not even the slight disadvantage
that I have to reach to the mouse.


(*) Note that while my use cases above include only two windows, I still
do have other windows open and work with them, so the window I want to
switch to is repeatedly not the first one that the window switcher
offers. For example, when writing a LaTeX document I have at least the
editor, a terminal, the PDF viewer, the browser, the email client and
probably further PDF viewers and terminals.


So please, keep FFP useable!

Greetings, Philipp