Re: [simon.marshall@misys.com: mouse-autoselect-window needs a delay]

[Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> This complaint seems valid.  Would someone like to address it?

Could we delay this for after the release?  It's far from crucial.

> From: "Marshall, Simon" <simon.marshall@misys.com>
> Subject: mouse-autoselect-window needs a delay
> To: "'Emacs Pretest Bug (emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org)'" <emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org>
>
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> This isn't a bug as such, but a suggestion for feature refinement.
>
> I like the concept of mouse-autoselect-window, since it allows me to attempt
> to mimic my WM's focus-follows-mouse frame policy for Emacs windows.  But
> there's always a but.
>
> If you have a split window but the invocation of a command forces you to
> move the mouse across a different window, you will probably end up applying
> the command to the wrong window.  For example, suppose a frame shows 2
> different windows, each containing a different C buffer.  Suppose you want
> to comment out a region in the buffer in the lower window.  You select the
> region, move the mouse up to the menu bar, select C > Comment Out Region,
> and watch in frustration as the operation is performed on the buffer in the
> upper window.  The focus had changed as you moved to the menu bar.
>
> WMs that support focus-follows-mouse together with raise-on-focus have a
> similar issue.  (Focus-follows-mouse is probably best with raise-on-focus.)
> They typically deal with that issue by (a) having a delay, (b) requiring the
> mouse to be stationary, or (c) both, before transferring focus and raising.
> That way, focus is less likely to be transferred when the user does not wish
> it.  My current WM implements (a) with something like a 0.5s delay.
>
> So, I'm suggesting that (a) and/or (b) be implemented for
> mouse-autoselect-window.  Perhaps the variable could have a numeric value,
> meaning a delay.  A value of t might be equivalent to a value of 0.  A
> mouse-[123] in a window would still immediately change focus.
>
> Comments?  Simon.