Re: [Usability] Discoverable off-screen window dragging

[Hans Petter Jansson <hpj novell com>]

On Wed, 2007-11-28 at 20:40 -0700, Elijah Newren wrote:
> On Nov 28, 2007 4:23 PM, Hans Petter Jansson <hpj novell com> wrote:

> > I was told by one user that the way he worked around this was by going
> > to the control panel, choosing a smaller font temporarily, moving the
> > window, then setting the big font again. Of course, he was very happy to
> > hear about the alt+drag shortcut.

> The user couldn't grab the titlebar and click and drag?  Why the font change?

I think this was a dialog that was too tall for the screen, and he
wanted to reach the OK button at the bottom. So the titlebar would be
off the top, and even if it wasn't, he wouldn't be able to drag it past
the top of the screen. Making the font smaller would make the OK button
come into view.

> > A better idea might be something like the following logic in the window
> > manager:
> >
> > IF window is focused AND
> >    pointer is pushing against the edge of the screen AND
> >    window has area off that edge of the screen AND

>       the window is larger than the "screen" in the given direction AND

> >    user is not dragging
> > THEN
> >    move the window in the opposite direction of the edge being pushed

> Sounds reasonable, if the above addition is included.  However one

I don't think that addition is necessary, as I think panning your
windows into view would be nice regardless. But I guess it might
surprise some people. I'm not that attached to that aspect of it, so if
others think it's a bad idea I don't mind the extra check.

> case to think about...do you mean off the edge of the screen, or off
> the edge of the "screen".  Think about the case where the user has a
> screen reader that takes up the right half the screen.  As screen
> readers act like panels, this would make the "screen" size effectively
> half the screen size.  Do you want to do scrolling in that case as
> well?  Does the user have to hit the edge of the screen or the edge of
> the "screen" to make the scrolling happen?

I'm partial to using the physical screen edge in order to keep it simple
and avoid surprises. I certainly wouldn't want it to start scrolling
when you reach the panel, either.

> A stupid question: How does one determine in the WM when the mouse is
> hitting the edge of the screen and how much it would go past (so one
> can know how much to scroll)?  I don't know about compiz, but metacity
> at least doesn't get MotionNotify events unless it has done a grab for
> some reason (e.g. during click-and-drag to move the window).

I don't know off the top of my head, but techniques should be
look-upable in some a11y apps - like the screen magnifier - which work
without exotic X extensions.

-- 
Hans Petter