[openbeos] Re: inconsistency?
- From: André Braga <meianoite@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 22:56:47 -0300
At the risk of annoying you all, I'd REALLY REALLY like to copy and
paste what I sent on a message which had the subject renamed by yours
truly, in a somewhat stupid decision. I think I've come up with a
solution that deals with all the difficulties and points you raised,
and it's unobtrusive, Fitt's law-friendly, and rather intuitive.
Monotype ASCII art can be found below (sorry, no bitmapped, graphical
mockups yet).
"However this still doesn't cover the case of having a window
occupying the whole screen, possibly hiding the Deskbar. So, giving up
the idea I described above, I'd suggest having something like a
translucent picture frame which takes the borders of the screen and
is, again, tinted in red and/or flashes somehow. The user would then
move the mouse towards any border of the screen and click the
translucent, colored frame, and then the window which wanted focus
would be brought to the front and the frame would disappear. Having
the mouse pointer brought over that window or kept on the border would
be a preference setting (I'd rather have it remain on the border, but
some people like the warping mouse effect). Having this border overlay
has the property of taking Fitt's law to the extreme that you have not
only "infinite height", but also "infinite width", in all four borders
of the screen. Of course, workspace warping should be disabled while
the frame is displayed/active."
Initial scenario
=--------------------------------------------------=
| | D |
| | e |
| ___________ | s |
| |___________|______________ | B k |
| | | | a |
| | | | r |
| | Currently | |________|
| | focused | |
| | window |____ |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| |__________________________| | |
| | Background window | |
| | | |
| Desktop |_____________________| |
| |
| |
=--------------------------------------------------=
Background window wants focus, frame flashes,
screen grays out, only relevant windows visible
=--------------------------------------------------=
|#########################################| D #####|
|#########################################|# e ####|
|##* * *.*_*_*_*_*_*.* * * * * * * * * * *|* *s* ##|
|## * * |___________|_*_*_*_*_*_*_* * * * * B *k*##|
|##* * *| | * * *|* a * ##|
|## * * | |* * * * * r *##|
|##* * *| Currently | * * *|*_*_*_##|
|## * * | focused |* * * * * * *##|
|##* * *| window | Grayed out ##|
|## * * | |*_*_* * * * *##|
|##* * *| |@ @ |* * * * ##|
|## * * | | @ @| * * * *##|
|##* * *| |@ @ |* * * * ##|
|## * * | | @ @| * * * *##|
|##* * *|__________________________|@ @ |* * * * ##|
|## * * * * * * * |@ Window req'ing @ @|Flashing##|
|##* Grayed out* *| @ focus; tinted @ @ |frame-->##|
|## * * * * * * * |@_@_@_@_@_@_@_@_@_@_@| * * * *##|
|##################################################|
|##################################################|
=--------------------------------------------------=
User clicks either the frame or the tinted window;
it gets focus, everything goes back to normal.
Pointer may be warped to the newly focused window,
behaviour settable on a preference panel.
=--------------------------------------------------=
| | D |
| | e |
| .___________. | s |
| |*_*_*_*_*_*|______________ | B k |
| | | | a |
| | Background | | r |
| | window | |________|
| | ._________. | |
| | |_________|______|____. |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | Currently | |
| | | focused | |
| | | window | |
| |_________| | |
| | | |
| | | |
| Desktop |_____________________| |
| |
| |
=--------------------------------------------------=
The "However" part refers to this:
"I'm thinking on something in the lines of Exposé, but the behaviour
would be like this: every part of the desktop is painted in grayscale
(or overlaid with a translucent gray "layer", maybe with some hardware
acceleration support), except for the active window and the window
that needs attention. The latter gets a red tinting and is moved to
some place where it can be seen, and when the user selects that
window, it is put on the top on the place it was before being moved to
get attention (unless it was a popup window, in which case it should
stay where it is to avoid unnecessary mouse movement)."
I'd really appreciate each and every comments!
Thank you,
André
On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 02:01:13 +0200 CEST, Axel Dörfler
<axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> "Mikael Jansson" <tic_khr@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > The bubble could always be ontop, always at the same position. Of
> > > course, only if that very position is not the hot spot of current
> > > user input (ie. the view having focus is covered).
> > We could place the note window anywhere, as the user should be able
> > to
> > click through it (perhaps not the /actual/ hot spot, but close
> > enough)
> > and act if it wasn't there.
>
> I would even go further in a different direction and would add
> functionality to it, like a button to close it, or a button to bring
> that stupid window into focus :)
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