Fear of the Dark

Question: allowing metacity/mutter/compiz/other to raise target window while d’n’ding will infringe some Apple Inc. legal stuff?? 😀

If not, couldn’t it be a cooool addition for 3.0? Let’s imagine: you start the drag action, dwell on (partially hidden) target, the window manager raise the target, you can drop anywhere in the target.

PS tip of the day for new GNOMErs: you can do something like this using the window list (aka taskbar) as intermediate target.

8 thoughts on “Fear of the Dark”

  1. I’ve actually gotten used to this aspect, and found myself trying to do this on my home computer… How about instead of springloading, use a right click when you’re dragging? i.e. click, drag, right click on where you want to go, right click on inner folder, (repeat as necessary) then drop into area?

  2. Well, i can live without autorised windows, but alt-tab should work for sure during dnd.

    usecase is: open nautilus, drag a file, with alt-tab select gedit window, release dnd into gedit window.

  3. Sorry, this was not supposed to sound unfriendly, just raising awareness for something I think is more important (since if you have your windows grouped, you surely have not enough space on your desktop to have both windows visible for dragging and dropping)

    But it’s a very nice idea.

  4. Speaking of 3.0 and using the window list during drag and drop: If I remember correctly, the GNOME Shell doesn’t have a window list. How is dnd to occluded windows possible?

  5. Why O Why doesn’t even the simplest dialog-raising work – I see an interesting link in my email, RSS reader or whatever, I double-click it and it looks like nothing happens. It has actually (and secretly) loaded the URL in the hidden browser window, without raising the browser dialog.

    Maybe some people like it that way, me I want to see an reaction to my action.

  6. No idea if it infringes any Apple patents, but by even suggesting in public that it might, you’ve made things worse for yourself if it does…

    Rule #1 of potential patent infringement: never discuss potential patent infringement. (At least not in any medium that anyone can dig up later.)

  7. If you have Compiz, then you can use the Scale plugin to pick your target. I recall being able to do this spring-loaded business in KDE 3.5 years ago.

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