unity-design team mailing list archive

[Ed Lin <edlin280@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 8:05 PM, Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Nice, not so obvious aspects of FFP are:
> - It eliminates the click-through question (does a click on a widget of an
> unfocused window just focus the window, or also count as click on the
> widget?)

This could be solved, see above.

> - It's consistent with how mouse wheel events are handled.

But it's inconsistent with the usual behavior of focus and raise
always happening together.

> I do use immediate auto raise. It allows me to very quickly switch between
> overlapping windows with a rough gesture. It's especially handy with GIMP,
> where I often use an image window that overlaps much of palettes to both
> sides of the screen. So I get a large working area but also quick access to
> tools. More convenient than toggling palettes with Tab or toggling
> full-screen mode in phases where I need to access palettes often.

GIMP is an awful example :P Its interface is gimped, the WM isn't the
right place to right it.
Do you have any other example where you'd miss auto rise specifically?

> I do have issues with dialogs and small windows falling back behind larger
> ones sometimes, where I have to use Alt-Tabbing. An optimized window
> placement scheme and/or automatically presenting a window that is hidden
> behind another one as tab of that window could solve that.

Then you will love this:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/05/os-xgnome-3-style-dialog-sheets-coming-to-ubuntu-11-10/

Anyway, would you not agree that autorise is not a good default
setting and would cause a lot of frustration with new users?
Therefore putting it back and first trying to get Unity right in the
default settings got to be priority,

> FFP with auto raise are the optimal settings if you get someone else to try
> to demonstrate something on your machine ;)

I got a large screen with overlapping windows. When I move the mouse
across the display from one side to the other (for example I just want
to access the launcher) I'd get a lot of unwanted window switching. I
don't see how that would work out for me.

>> (...) if you really care about speed and efficiency best thing
>>
>> you could do is throw out your mouse and learn the keyboard controls.
>
> You can fool yourself regarding the efficiency of keyboard shortcuts easily.
> You may have to think, recall shortcuts, which throws off your sense of
> time. So it depends on training effects and what the alternative means of
> interaction is, exactly.

If we are going there (the speed argument) we have "power users" in
mind. I don't think they'll have troubles remembering keyboard
shortcuts they use every day. For "ordinary people", yes, that's why
Unity should work great with just the mouse (It doesn't yet, for
example the spread view, super+w, isn't exposed at all).

Thanks for you input as well!

-ed