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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    RE: The Universal Sidebar
From:       "Jamethiel Knorth" <jamethknorth () hotmail ! com>
Date:       2004-07-15 6:30:07
Message-ID: BAY7-F71sIwvSQPWoNY00007e5e () hotmail ! com
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>From: Janne Ojaniemi <janne.ojaniemi@nbl.fi>
>Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 01:32:09 +0300
>
>I use universal sidebar on my desktop. And while I do think that it's an 
>great
>addition to KDE (if it weren't, I wouldn't use it), there is IMO one thing
>that it needs. Quite often when I'm using some app, I activate the sidebar 
>by
>mistake. My mouse-pointer wanders few pixels too far, and the sidebar pops
>up. This used to be a major problem for me when I had the sidebar in the
>right-hand edge of the screen. I used to activate it by mistake when using
>scrollbars for example. Now I have the sidebar in the left side of the
>screen, and while the problem is reduced somewhat, it still pops up when my
>mouse-pointer gets too close to the edge of the screen. When the sidebar 
>pops
>up, I need to wait for it to disappear before I can continue with my work
>(since it usually covers the thing I was going to manipulate).
>
>How could this behavior be avoided? Instead of showing the sidebar 
>immediately
>after the pointer crosses the threshold, there should be a delay. If you 
>are
>merely operating a scrollbar or some icon, you could do that without the
>sidebar getting in to the way. And the sidebar would notice that "Well, the
>pointer has crossed the threshold, but it's moving a scrollbar. My guess is
>that I'm not needed at this moment". If you really want to access the
>sidebar, you could just move the pointer to the edge of the screen, and 
>after
>second or two, the sidebar would appear.
>
>What do you think?

The major problem here is that there is a direct conflict of two correct 
ideas. The sidebar should wait to pop-up most-of-the-time, but if there is a 
delay, it makes access to a key component of the desktop very slow and 
awkward.

My recommendation would be to add an option to kicker panels to have their 
delay-before-popup changed individually, so that those which are often 
wanted quickly and have few accidental accesses can be accessed swiftly, and 
those which are easy to bump can be made less bothersome.

Although that would seem like a lot of irritation for a user to set, it 
would most likely never be touched. Just set the default for most panels to 
a tenth of a second or thereabouts, and the default for the universal 
sidebar and other panels which occupy those sorts of areas to a full second 
or two. About the only case where this is a problem is with the universal 
sidebar due it its massiveness and positioning.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend you submit a bug-report/wishlist-item 
to bugs.kde.org with either your suggestion or my own. Also, make sure to 
reference this thread.

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