unity-design team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Greg K Nicholson wrote on 29/05/10 02:05:
>
>> That is precisely what it does, and has done for years. But it will
>> always be guessing. If you're watching a video and it mentions an
>> unfamiliar word, and you launch the Dictionary to look it up, and it
>> takes two seconds to launch, you want it to take focus. But if you
>> launch OpenOffice.org and it takes 40 seconds to launch, probably you
>> don't want it to suddenly cover the video you'll be watching 40
>> seconds later. So when should the window manager switch from assuming
>> you want a new window focused, to assuming you don't?
> 
> When you deliberately focus another window.

That's assuming the question. Whether you "deliberately focus another
window" is what the window manager is trying to guess.

>> After five seconds? Ten? Twenty?
> 
> It shouldn't be timed.
> 
> I suggest that if you haven't had time to focus another window (i.e.
> if you haven't started doing something else), focus the new window. If
> you've focused another window, the new window should open in the
> background.

So how do you define "started doing something else"?

>> And how can the window manager, by itself, tell which was the
>> action that resulted in the window eventually opening?
> 
> The window manager doesn't need to know what launched the window. The
> focus state of the new window should only be based on what's focused
> when the new window opens. The launching app can then affect the new
> window's focus indirectly by throwing focus to «nothing». If «nothing»
> remains focused by the time the new window opens, focus the new
> window. If something is focused when the new window opens, it keeps
> focus.

In the OpenOffice.org case, that would mean the previously focused
window would remain focused for about 30 seconds after you launched
OpenOffice.org, *then* become unfocused as soon as OO.o became able to
do anything.

- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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