GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 89416
Improve handling of minimized windows in Alt+Tab, Alt+Esc
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Package: metacity Severity: trivial Version: 2.3.987 Synopsis: cycle_windows unminimize hidden window Bugzilla-Product: metacity Bugzilla-Component: general Description: ami, the Korean XIM client, is minimized by default. and I did not expect to see ami unminimized by metacity cycle_windows. I tried some scanning for keybindings.c and other sources. but failed to find proper line of code to filter out minimized window for cycle_windows task. I think it's natural not to open hidden window by cycle_windows. what about you? ------- Bug moved to this database by unknown@bugzilla.gnome.org 2002-07-30 08:55 ------- Reassigning to the default owner of the component, hp@redhat.com.
It has to open the minimized window, or there would be no way to move to it, I would think. Maybe we could say you have to use Alt+Tab to unminimize a window, I don't know.
I think cycle_windows as focus_previous, and the minimized window has never focused. so cycle_windows has nothing to do with the minimized one.
Yeah, there is no good way to get to a minimized window otherwise, so I think this is an accessibility bug if 'fixed.' Not sure, though. Either way, not a big deal.
It's very busy feature for me. ;) and minimized window remain accessible via Alt-Tab, I believe.
Any UI team opinions?
The best I can do to help you is to make a guess based on the need for consistency across the desktop: This bug suggests that there are a few ways to conceptualize what defines the set of your cyclable windows: first, your cyclable windows could just be the ones that you see on the screen in front of you-- those that are not minimized, or on another workspace, or otherwise not accessible to you without some work. second, your cyclable windows could also be all your windows, both those that are visible on your screen, and those that are not (because they are minimized or something). this brings me to a question. right now, when you choose the cycle_windows command, are you cycled through all windows, or only the ones on your current workspace? My workspace switcher applet is defunct, so i can't check. (Though I bet that you are only cycled through windows on your current workspace) Anyway, if cycle_windows cycles only through the windows on your current workspace, then there is some precedent to suggest that cycle_windows should only operate on currently visible windows. However, if cycle_windows cycles through all the windows on all desktops, then there is some precedent for this command to also cycle through minimized windows. Does that make sense? In the end, I am advocating that this command work consistently across different types of "hidden" windows, whether or not they are iconified or stored on a different workspace. (I know, I know, there has been more air-tight logic. I'm just trying to give you an example of using consistency-with-other-parts-of-the-desktop to solve your problem.)
Windows XP window-cycling has two subtleties over metacity that may or may not help here: - when using Alt-Tab, currently-minimized windows are always placed last on the cycle list, i.e. you're always cycled through visible windows first. (Actually I thought this used to happen in metacity, but if it did it's not working any more...) - when using Alt-Esc, minimized windows are never restored... focus is only ever moved to that window's button in the tasklist instead. Even if you release Alt-Esc on a minimized window, therefore, you have to press Enter/Space to restore it.
Ooh, nice. Thanks Calum. Let's do that.
Presumably if you don't have a window list anywhere on your desktop, minimized windows should just be restored as you cycle through them with Alt-Esc anyway, otherwise things will be mighty confusing.
Marking this fixed since my CVS metacity has the described behavior, and the following ChangeLog entry exists: 2002-10-24 Havoc Pennington <hp@pobox.com> * src/display.c (meta_display_get_tab_list): put minimized windows at the end of Alt+Tab, #89416
The Alt+Esc/tasklist part isn't done, though.
The Alt-tab part of this is not working for me using metacity 2.4.8-1 from phoebe. From poking around in bonsai (since ChangeLog isn't included with metacity), it looks like this should have the fix.
It seems that no window is focused after I minimize a window. Alt-tab brings me to the window that I just minimized, instead of the one that I used second-most recently (the one that I used most recently being where the focus should be).
I'm splitting this into two bugs for separate tracking: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107071 http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=107072 Closing this one.