>
> Now, now, let's be gentle here....but I rather thought Mr. Raney's message
> looked unnecessarily flameable, too.
>
> On Wed, 23 Oct 1996, Jim Nicholson wrote:
>
> > On 23 Oct 1996, Alan Shutko wrote:
> >
> > My apologies to Alan; I couldn't find Scott's original post...
> >
> > > >>>>> "SR" == Scott Raney <raney_at_metacard.com> writes:
> > >
> > > SR> Continued use of pointer focus as the default will just
> > > SR> demonstrate a total lack of respect for industry standards by the
> > > SR> fvwm developers,
>
> Yes, Mr. Raney actually phrased things this way. I think he must be
> peeved at the different behavior of "standard" mwm and its brethren as
> opposed to the occasionally idiosyncratic way fvwm appears to handle
> things. It is _possible_ that fvwm is rigorously enforcing the standard
> protocol while other products are invoking nonstandard special handling.
> I am not in a position to assess the matter. However, I can overlook the
> rather strident form of Mr. Raney's protest (posted about 9 pm after
> perhaps a long day at work) and examine the content.
Perhaps it was a bit strong, but we've been pointing out the inherent
and insurmountable problems of using pointer focus with real GUI
applications (as opposed to xterms) for years now, and have sent
requests in to the fvwm developers before with no effect. And the
statement is true: explicit focus is the de facto industry standard,
and although having a contrarian streak is a stereotypical
characteristic of Linux users (and probably of fvwm users on other
platforms), there are times when playing nice with the other children
is the right thing to do.
> > To quote Bruce, "Howls of derisive laughter, Bruce!"
> >
> > _IF_ the "industry standards" were any good, I wouldn't be using fvwm.
> >
>
> Yes, I use pointer focus and detest click-to-focus and autoraise. Not
> all users have the same opinions. And yes, fvwm does attempt to support
> all options. But Mr. Raney has identified purportedly exceptional
> circumstances.
I'm not arguing against choice, only that the *default* setting should
be the one that will benefit the most users. It just seems unfair
(and unwise) to me that those who are least able to make the changes
(new users) are the ones who are stuck with the task. *You* know how
to set up fvwm and will probably be changing the configuration anyway
to suit your needs, so why not just make the default the one that's
best for the X and UNIX community as a whole?
> > > SR> prevents many advanced applications (such as
> > > SR> MetaCard) from working well on many Linux systems, annoys and
> > > SR> confuses novice users, and is generally detrimental to the success
> > > SR> of products such as Linux that deserve all the help they can get.
> >
> > Insisting of click focus demonstrates both a lack of design flexibility
> > and a total lack of respect for user preferences by the MetaCard
> > developers, prevents many advanced system tools (such as Linux and fvwm)
> > from working well with MetaCard, annoys and confuses both novice users and
> > those of us who must support them (and the later group quite often
> > influence purchasing decisions) and is generally detrimental to the
> > success of products such as MetaCard that frankly may not deserve any
> > help.
>
> If a developer is including the Linux world (and such of the commercial
> world as use fvwm, which is a growing segment) in his market audience,
> this seems good to me. He does seem to be confusing Linux and fvwm,
> however large the overlap may be.
I realize that they are separate, and it's good that you realize that
the considerable overlap means that their destinies are intertwined.
> > > First, the default focus policy is a site/distribution decision. You
> > > would be better off haranguing them.
>
> Yes, a README for the MetaCard distribution would be an appropriate idea.
The MetaCard installation instructions include details about how to
change the focus model for mwm and olwm (which together account for
about 98% of our installed base). But these two both come configured
with explicit focus from the vendors, so there's no need to change
them in most cases. And although you're correct that this is a
site/distribution decision, I think you underestimate the importance
of the recommendations (in the form of default settings) made by the
developers of the individual packages.
> But _if_ MetaCard programmers have found a misbehavior of fvwm, I would
> think it appropriate to fix it. The accompanying request to change the
> default pointer focus behavior for fvwm is (I think) very much another
> matter. It is unreasonable to insist that the present focus default is
> irresponsible. If one were marketing fvwm, then it would be a question of
> $ and market share, and the answer would come from a customer vote.
Even though you're not selling fvwm, it is certainly in all of our
bests interest that the largest number of people find it easy to learn
and easy to use (especially on most Linux systems, where fvwm is the
default window manager). Unless you care to dispute the fact that
most people are familiar with explicit focus, or that explicit focus
is easier to learn for novices, the correct default setting seems clear.
> > I support 200 Win95 users. My most frequent request is to install Xmouse,
> > an unsupported (yet Microsoft-developed) extension to Win95 that
> > implements pointer focus for Win95.
>
> This is encouraging, as I think it shows signs of independent thinking on
> the part of Microsoft users (;^)
I actually find it confusing, unless these Windows users are former
workstation users. Windows is exactly the kind of environment that I
was refering to that doesn't work very well with pointer focus.
Actually the problems aren't as bad in Windows applications as they
are with X applications because Windows has floating palettes that
stay on top even when they lose the focus, and because there is no
way to do "active focus" applications in Windows (clicking in a window
always activates that window in Windows).
It's also confusing because pointer focus really only has advantages
when you're dealing primarily with xterm-type windows (as I invariably
discover is the standard tool of pointer focus afficianados). When
your rarely or never use them, pointer focus is just a pain in the ass
because you're constantly having to move the mouse before you can type
in dialogs and such.
> > > Second, fvwm 2 allows the focus policy to be set on a per window basis,
> > > so it could be MouseFocus for most things, but ClickFocus for
> > > MetaCard.
> >
> > Which only goes to show that the problem is MetaCard not supporting fvwm,
> > and not fvwm's lack of support for MetaCard.
This is really putting the cart before the horse: you buy a computer
to run applications, not a window manager. If your applications work
with other window managers but not fvwm, it's fvwm that's broken, not
the applications. We'd like to support Linux as best we can, and to
support choice in window managers on other workstations. But to do
this we need better compatibility between fvwm and either mwm or olwm.
Regards,
Scott
> Michael Tiefenback
> --
> Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/>.
> To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm" in the body of a
> message to majordomo_at_hpc.uh.edu.
> To report problems, send mail to fvwm-owner_at_hpc.uh.edu.
>
--
***************************************************************
Scott Raney raney_at_metacard.com http://www.metacard.com
Tcl and ksh: syntactic gymnastics
MetaCard: it does what you think
--
Visit the official FVWM web page at <URL:http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/>.
To unsubscribe from the list, send "unsubscribe fvwm" in the body of a
message to majordomo_at_hpc.uh.edu.
To report problems, send mail to fvwm-owner_at_hpc.uh.edu.
Received on Wed Oct 23 1996 - 12:31:53 BST