Re: [rudalics@gmx.at: Re: [simon.marshall@misys.com: mouse-autoselect-window needs a de lay]]

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

     > The right fix, in my opinion, would be lazy focus
     > change: only when a keyboard or mouse event occurs in the new window,
     > is the focus changed.  That has the disadvantage that the user may be
     > surprised by the change since the old window appears to have focus
     > before typing a key.

    That could be added.  But it would violate the principle of least
    surprise.  In my experience, the `mode-line-inactive' face and the
    `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' option handle feedback pretty well.

I really dislike that approach.

     > In order to mitigate the surprise, it might be reasonable to visibly
     > unfocus the old window (by the different highlighting of the mode line
     > and the different cursor type), but not refocus a different window
     > before an event occurs.

    That would be disconcerting, IMHO.

Also, I don't see how it would help.

     > A more radical approach would be to move toolbar and menubar just
     > above the currently selected window.  This would also require less
     > mouse movement, but would likely earn us an award for the most weird
     > user interface look ever.

    I recall someone proposing the use of popup menus instead.  There's also
    the possibility to access the menubar via F10 or the ALT key.  However,
    clients of `mouse-autoselect-window' are probably inclined to access the
    menubar with the mouse too.

We can't consider making such complex changes now, and I think they
would be really hard, so I doubt we should consider them later either.

    That's what I thought before I started implementing this.  Currently, I
    use a value of -0.5, that is, wait for about a second after I started
    moving the mouse and select the other window iff the mouse doesn't move
    any more.  So far I didn't notice any confusion with these settings.

I want to proceed with this approach, so I ask
people to study this patch in detail.