GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 107702
Switch workspaces using a mouse drag on the screen edge
Last modified: 2005-12-15 00:07:03 UTC
It would be really nice to be able to switch workspaces really quickly using the mouse dragging on the screen edge. So you can throw your mouse to the edge where the window list panel object is, click and hold, and then as you move left and right past the workspaces it would change to them. This removes the need to precisely position to hit a "workspace" in the left-right direction (of course, right now you have to position in up-down too, since we can't detect clicks at the screen edge), and should improve the potential speed for changing workspacse with a mouse by quite a bit.
I don't think I get it - why does the window list applet change workspaces? Does the window button you clicked matter? If this has nothing to do with the window list applet specifically shouldn't you be able to click/drag anywhere on the bottom of the panel?
Window list? Argh. I meant "workspace switcher". Though... using the whole bottom of the panel is an interesting idea, but I would prefer to be able to, for example, click on the bottom edge to switch windows, as that is a more common operation that switching workspaces (though for some people, its pretty close... :-).
We do detect clicks at the screen edge now, so this should be possible. Such an idea would conflict somewhat with the fact that we focus and raise windows that are clicked on if that window is in the currently active workspace (thank goodness we no longer do that for all workspaces--bug 124981). Of course, as pointed out in bug 100470 (by campd & calum) the focus & raise feature is probably a bad idea so it really _shouldn't_ conflict.
See also bug 130308 which suggests using the scroll wheel on the mouse when over the workspace switcher to switch workspaces.
Moving to right component. Sorry for the spam.
*** Bug 321093 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Brightside fulfills this, if you are confused sliding the mouse to switch workspaces from the screen. Not scrolling on the little applet. Anyway this isnt a bug its a feature request. But for now as i mentioned brightside fulfills this task but it would be nice if gnome integrated it.
Uh, brightside doesn't fulfill this at all, your bug must have been different (the "drag" threw Vincent and I off). If you're thinking of Brightside, see the "Why is there no edge flipping?" section of http://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/metacity/README?view=markup As to Seth's original feature request: It would be problematic unless the desktops were empty and bug 130308 provides an alternative, so I'll just close. Seth: scream if you still see an issue or something.