FC5: first impressions

Bill Crawford billcrawford1970 at gmail.com
Sun Mar 26 19:24:22 UTC 2006


On Sunday 26 March 2006 15:43, Dimi Paun wrote:

> But more importantly, I don't understand why people are
> harping on the terminal use case. My particular complaint
> applies to the entire desktop -- when I start any app (say
> from the GNOME menu), it does not get the focus! It is
> started in the background with a flashing button in the
> task bar.

 I did try to explain I'm totally with you on this one :)

 The popunder behaviour is not a useful universal solution. Not that there 
ever are any truly *universal* solutions, but ...

> If I start an app, it means that I want to use it _now_.
> Don't make me ask for it 2-3 times. In the unlikely case
> when I don't, a quick Alt-TAB solves the problem. If this
> is still not obvious to people, here's a quick comparison:
>   Focus Stealing:
>     -- >90% of time it does the right thing
>     -- <10% the fix is a sub-second Alt-TAB, no mouse
>   Manual Focus
>     -- >90% you have to use >1sec to gain the focus with the mouse
>     -- <10% you don't have to do anything
>
> If you still prefer the manual focus, all power to you, but
> that shouldn't be the default behavior. Let's just stick to
> the principle of least surprise here folks, we would make a
> lot of people happy.

 Principle of least surprise -> I don't end up hitting return and finding I've 
dismissed a dialogue box in the moment that it appeared, after which I may be 
unable to discover even what the box *was*.

 I totally agree with most of your comments, I just wanted to get across that 
the "root password in your im window" and "sh**, what was that dialogue?" are 
real problems in the real world for some people; and more's to the point, 
ones that those people won't even be aware of *until it happens to them" - 
now, it would be entirely fair (but a little mean) to make the default be the 
old behaviour, and make them select "focus stealing prevention" after they 
discover the problem. But taking away that option on the grounds it's "a non 
issue" to you is like saying lifebuoys are unnecessary because you've never 
drowned.

 Should seat belts be optional?




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