Subject: Focus Policy and Window List Reordering

From: Bob Woodside <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 15:40:26 -0400

In looking through all the focus code recently I was reminded of
something that has puzzled me for some time. Does anyone know a really
good reason why the window list is reordered two different ways on a
focus change, depending on whether the newly-focused window is
ClickToFocus or MouseFocus?

	(If the newly-focused window is MouseFocus, that window is plucked out
of the list and inserted at the top, so the list reflects the order of
most- to least-recently focused windows; if the newly-focused window is
ClickToFocus, the list is effectivel rotated so that the target window
is at the top, but the relative order remains the same.)

	This goes way back to the Version 1 days, when the focus policies were
an all-or-nothing proposition (i.e., not Style options), and
ClickToFocus mode didn't reorder the window list on a focus change. I
don't remember what the reason for this was, but I question whether it's
really useful to try to preserve this behavior. Since you can have a
mixed-mode configuration (i.e., some mousey-focus windows and some
clicky), this just seems to engender confusion about the meaning of the
window list order. In fact, it really isn't meaningful if you have
different focus policies in effect for different windows.

	Any ideas?

Cheers,
Bob
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---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 22:48:38 +0200

> different focus policies in effect for different windows.

I'm at a loss.  Basically, ClickToFocus keeps the windows in the
order they were created while mousey focus uses the order in which
they were last focused.  While the CTF behaviour is more
predictable when Alt-Tab'ing through the window list, the mousey
focus order seems to be more natural to me.  The distinction seems
useless to me.  No reason why two concurrent approaches should be
maintained.  Perhaps its simply a Mwm compatibility issue?

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

 --
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From: Michael Han <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 13:55:56 -0700

> maintained.  Perhaps its simply a Mwm compatibility issue?

I don't know where this comes from either, but I've always vaguely
wished that ClickToFocus would use last-focus order and wondered why
it didn't. It always seemed like a bug, but not one I could nail down
enough to look into.
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[email-masked]                            http://www.mikehan.com/
coffee achiever                              San Francisco, California
Unix *is* user friendly. It just happens to be very selective about
who its friends are.
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From: Bob Woodside <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 20:51:31 -0400

Michael Han wrote:
> > > Does anyone know a really good reason why the window list is
> > > reordered two different ways on a focus change, depending on
> > > whether the newly-focused window is ClickToFocus or MouseFocus?
> >
> > The distinction seems useless to me.  No reason why two concurrent
> > approaches should be maintained.  Perhaps its simply a Mwm
> > compatibility issue?
> 

	I think, as Dominik suggested, that the idea of the two modes was
suggested by mwm, although it wasn't implemented quite the way mwm does
it; and, in any case, it's not consistent anymore, since you can have a
mix of mousey and clicky windows. I think using the last-focus order
universally would make a good deal more sense.

	Maybe we should solicit some votes...? I vote for the universal
last-focus order. Mike, I take it your vote would make 2 for that
approach. I suspect, from his previous comment, that Dominik would make
a third, but I'll let him speak for himself.

Cheers,
Bob

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 09:47:05 +0200

> a third, but I'll let him speak for himself.

Make it three.  My only concern is that the stable 2.4.1 release
is not be the right place to do such changes.

Bye

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

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From: Michael Han <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 07:32:34 -0700

> a third, but I'll let him speak for himself.

Yes, my vote is for last-focus.
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[email-masked]                            http://www.mikehan.com/
coffee achiever                              San Francisco, California
A double negative is a no-no.
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