[nzlug] Observations of gnome kbd+gui behavior: for discussion

[Simon Bridge]

On Fri, 2008-03-14 at 09:00 +1300, Cliff Pratt wrote:
> Simon Bridge wrote:
> > 
> > Which behaviour?
> > The one I see has the menu key put the menu under the mouse key.
> > The one I was asking about puts the menu at the focussed item.
> > 
> I must have misunderstood. When I right click on the empty desk top the 
> context menu pops up at the mouse position. When I right click at any 
> other item the context menu for that item pops up at the mouse position. 
>   This seems to not be what you are talking about?
> 
> When I do the same with the right menu button, it still pops up the menu 
> under the mouse. Has this not always happened that way?

AFAIK... yes.
You'll notice that if you use the rt-menu button (key, button, whatever)
while firefox has the focus, the behaviour changes.

In this evolution edit pane, it does nothing (but there is a rt-click
version), but when the insertion point is in one of the header feilds,
it appears under the field, at the end of the text.

I don't see this as a design "flaw", just a design aspect which is
different elsewhere.

Of particular note - if you try this in WinVista (and, I am told, WinXP
in later service packs) you get the context menu appearing at wherever
you are looking - so if an icon is selected, the menu appears on the
icon *instead of* under the mouse. (Go try it and see...)

This is particularly obvious for people who use the keyboard a great
deal to interact with the gui. For these people, the mouse tends to be
ignored a lot of the time, and can be bumped in to an awkward location
and so forth. Then, when they want the context menu, it turns up aff to
the side.

To me, the mouse is the primary means of interacting with the gui, and
if I want to use the keyboard a lot, I open a terminal. At which point,
the context menu becomes irrelevant.

People upgrading from WinVista seem to find it annoying.

I suspect the behaviour is an MS-only thing... which leads to a
suspicion there may be some sort of IP restrictions involved. (It would
be consistent with the patents I've read - but that's another thread.)

So, short of installing other OSs myself, I'd be interested in the
behaviour in other setups.