Feature: remember last cursor/pointer position

[juarezr]

Proposed behavior

• After a window receives focus, the extension:
  • Checks if the cursor already is inside the window.
  • Checks if it has the last cursor position inside the window.
  • If positive then it doesn't change the cursor position
  • Otherwise:
    • When it has the last cursor position then it moves the cursor to this position.
    • Otherwise, it moves the cursor to the center of that window.
• Add a setting in preferences to enable it.

Advantages

Using the last position for positioning the cursor has the following advantages:

• It's a better guess of what would be the shortest path from the cursor position to the next click position.
• It considers users' intentions for cursor placement.

Disavantages

• It could raise involuntary click incident rates as it puts often the cursor near the last clicked widget.
• Sometimes users prefer fixed positions.
• The center of the window is the shortest distance to all points inside the window, thus being better positioned for fast movement.
  • However, mouse clicks tend to concentrate on some hot spots instead of being linearly distributed through the window.

[juarezr]

Fixes #227

[jmmaranan]

Hi @juarezr - thanks for the implementation. Besides, the move action, I think you also need to apply it on the swap. A swap is triggered by Ctrl + Super + <directional mapping - e.g. usually mapped to h,j,k,l>

[jmmaranan]

One issue I notice is that when in tabbed mode, and clicking on any tab, it steals the mouse focus and moves it to the center.

[juarezr]

Besides, the move action, I think you also need to apply it on the swap.

I was unsure if it would move the cursor in this case.

One issue I notice is that when in tabbed mode, and clicking on any tab, it steals the mouse focus and moves it to the center.

• It moves the cursor to the center because of the window capturing focus,
• What should be the behavior in this case?

[jmmaranan]

I was unsure if it would move the cursor in this case.

Currently, when the windows are swapped, the active focus is on the target window not the source. So cursor, I think, should move to the target swapped window.

One issue I notice is that when in tabbed mode, and clicking on any tab, it steals the mouse focus and moves it to the center.

* It moves the cursor to the center  because of the window capturing focus,

* What should be the behavior in this case?

It should not steal focus when doing a mouse click, it is undesired behavior.

[juarezr]

I think that the last changes tackle the issues raised.

There is something else that needs fixing?

[jmmaranan]

Please see additional comments from OP on #227. I will test it this week. Thanks

[juarezr]

@jmmaranan,

Is there something pending in this PR that I could tackle?
Could you share your opinion regarding merging?

Thanks,

[jmmaranan]

Hi @juarezr - this PR seems to claim to fix #227 - however, the OP for that ticket did not seem to indicate it does. And additional follow-up from you if it was quarter-tiling (an existing mode) and binary-tiling was left unanswered. So I would say we remove that it fixes 227. I did find a closed issue #225 - that seems to be much closer to where your changes can apply. I will re-open that ticket.

Now on to the issues, looks like:

• Tab clicking and focus stealing is now fixed. Thanks!
• Noticed that the focus and moving the pointer sometimes does not work on newly opened windows. See screen capture.
• Forge has a move-window [Super + Shift + direction keys or h,j,k,l] in addition to swap-window [Ctl + Shift + direction keys or h,j,k,l] - move-window does not focus the window.

Screencast.from.2023-08-06.10-22-02.webm

[jmmaranan]

Another small issue (but should not affect this PR) I am seeing is that fiddling with the mouse-focus click, between windows sometimes steals the focus. I don't think users do this normally but something about the performance of trying to focus the pointer. Tried to capture it on the screencast below:

Screencast.from.2023-08-06.11-15-06.webm

[juarezr]

Wow! Awesome testing!
I'll take a look soon.

[juarezr]

@jmmaranan,

• Hopefully, I fixed the focus issues in the move window shortcuts and newly opened windows.
• I have also improved the Tab clicking handling for tackling another issue that I've found.
• Regarding the fiddling with the mouse-focus click:
  • I couldn't reproduce it.
  • I suppose that could be a race condition while queueing the focus move event.
  • Please, let me know if it continues to happen with these latest modifications.
  • Perhaps it is also gone.

[jmmaranan]

I'll review it sometime over the weekend

[jmmaranan]

Hi @juarezr got busy on day job. Will try again this weekend.

[jmmaranan]

Hi @juarezr would you be able to rebase using main? Main branch has been upgraded to gnome 45 with import/export

[juarezr]

Hi @jmmaranan,

I'll update it as soon as I have some free time.