On Sat, 20 Sep 2014, Carlos R. Mafra wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2014 at 11:51:06 +0200, Amadeusz Sławiński wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2014 17:04:02 +0800
David Maciejak <david.macie...@gmail.com> wrote:
That is the behaviour i have without the patch (and that's why i
called it mixed up windows list):
1 has focus
alt-tab (next window) show
1 [2] 3
2 has focus
alt-tab show
2 [1] 3
1 has focus
alt-tab show
1 [2] 3
press another alt-tab, select 3
1 2 [3]
3 has focus
alt-tab show
3 [1] 2
another alt-tab to 2, show
3 1 [2]
2 has focus
alt-tab show
2 [3] 1
To do that i just configured the "Focus next window" in WPrefs to
alt-tab. But as said that behaviour is sounding more like move focus
back to previous focused window.
A, B, [C], D
now I alt-tab again and with this patch it goes to D
A, B, C, [D]
yes that was what i was expecting from "Focus next window"
[A], B, C, D
I 'alt-tab' and while keeping alt down, I 'tab' more and end up on
let's say C
A, B, [C], D
with old behaviour I am back on A
[A], B, C, D
That's focus on previous focused window.
I can understand that feature is useful but not really expected.
I've checked some other operating systems and OS X and Windows XP (both
using switchpanels) bring application you change to, to the front of the
window list. I would say it makes a lot of sense in keyboard driven
windows management. People usually work with few applications and want
to change between them instantly, without going through a whole list
(especially if they have a lot of windows open), so it makes a lot of
sense to keep recently used ones closer on list.
Imagine for example:
webbrowser, xterm, xterm, xterm, mailapp, xterm, xterm, xterm, xterm
with task being: copying stuff from webbrowser to mailapp.
With your patch you would need each time focus on where your browser and
mailapp are and go through all those xterms when changing windows,
instead of instantly changing between them.
Precisely! What David wants to fix is actually more of a semantic
problem. In practice, the current behaviour is much more desirable
for the reason you pointed out.
And quite frankly, we cannot change such a behaviour right now.
Long-time wmaker users will just be annoyed, and they are wmaker's
biggest asset.
But yes, I've checked and I confirm that it doesn't work too well with
mouse bindings ("Next Window" keeps changing just between two windows,
instead of going through list) which, as I understand is the way you
want to use it.
I think the way out is to introduce an option to select between
David's and the current behaviour. Something along the lines
of "Strict focus next behaviour" with default off and many
comments about it being useful for the mouse bindings (perhaps
in balloon texts).
I remember there used to be an option called something like Windoze
cycling in expert prefs but I can't find it any more. Maybe it was removed
previously in one of the "clean up" patches. I've tried to find it in
history but could not, maybe you have better luck finding it.
Regards,
BALATON Zoltan
