Re: address@hidden: Re: address@hidden: mouse-autoselect-window needs a de lay]]

[martin rudalics]

> I think a delay is the wrong thing to do here since it makes stuff
> unpredictable.

Delays are the standard approach window managers adopted for focus
follows mouse and window auto-raising.

> The right fix, in my opinion, would be lazy focus
> change: only when a keyboard or mouse event occurs in the new window,
> is the focus changed.  That has the disadvantage that the user may be
> surprised by the change since the old window appears to have focus
> before typing a key.

That could be added.  But it would violate the principle of least
surprise.  In my experience, the `mode-line-inactive' face and the
`cursor-in-non-selected-windows' option handle feedback pretty well.

> In order to mitigate the surprise, it might be reasonable to visibly
> unfocus the old window (by the different highlighting of the mode line
> and the different cursor type), but not refocus a different window
> before an event occurs.

That would be disconcerting, IMHO.

> A more radical approach would be to move toolbar and menubar just
> above the currently selected window.  This would also require less
> mouse movement, but would likely earn us an award for the most weird
> user interface look ever.

I recall someone proposing the use of popup menus instead.  There's also
the possibility to access the menubar via F10 or the ALT key.  However,
clients of `mouse-autoselect-window' are probably inclined to access the
menubar with the mouse too.

> I don't think it is reasonable to expect to sort this out before the
> release.  I think that there are several viable possibilities, and
> we'd need the feedback of testers trying each of those out for several
> weeks before it would be viable to decide on a sensible strategy.

Simon and me have been testing this intensively for an entire month.
Emacs developers apparently either don't use `mouse-autoselect-window'
or don't use the menubar.  Otherwise they would have complained earlier.
Hence, for testing this any further we need a broader audience.

> I don't think that the delay stuff is a good strategy: it brakes and
> confuses the user when he indeed wants to change focus, and it causes
> hectic when he doesn't.

That's what I thought before I started implementing this.  Currently, I
use a value of -0.5, that is, wait for about a second after I started
moving the mouse and select the other window iff the mouse doesn't move
any more.  So far I didn't notice any confusion with these settings.