Bug 372847 - Hide task manager window previews when keyboard input is received
Summary: Hide task manager window previews when keyboard input is received
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Task Manager and Icons-Only Task Manager widgets (show other bugs)
Version: master
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Eike Hein
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2016-11-23 19:43 UTC by NiO
Modified: 2017-12-13 23:17 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

See Also:
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Description NiO 2016-11-23 19:43:59 UTC
This has been a minor nuisance but it happens often enough I felt the need to suggest this.

If I let go of my mouse to start typing, and my mouse happens to be at the bottom of the screen, one of the task manager preview boxes pops up and covers up what I'm trying to type.  I propose that these previews be hidden if there is any keyboard input.

This happens surprisingly often

The problem is best described by example.. I recorded a short gif here: http://i.imgur.com/p8ckiqa.gif
Comment 1 Eike Hein 2016-11-24 00:22:41 UTC
Martin, how could we do this in Plasma?
Comment 2 Martin Flöser 2016-11-24 07:40:45 UTC
(In reply to Eike Hein from comment #1)
> Martin, how could we do this in Plasma?

we cannot. We don't know when typing is going on without grabbing the keyboard and thus breaking the keyboard input for all.
Comment 3 Eike Hein 2016-11-24 07:51:44 UTC
Could kwin send some sort of abstract signal that doesn't leak the specific activity?
Comment 4 Martin Flöser 2016-11-24 08:47:24 UTC
(In reply to Eike Hein from comment #3)
> Could kwin send some sort of abstract signal that doesn't leak the specific
> activity?

On X11 kwin doesn't know either. On Wayland you don't want a wakeup in plasmashell for every key press (note that such a signal would allow to completely trace what gets typed).
Comment 5 Eike Hein 2016-11-24 08:53:20 UTC
Good point about the wakeups, but not sure how a "there was activity" signal would leak /what/ gets typed. About the wakeups, perhaps Plasma could indicate when it wants to hear about it (and then only do it when the tooltips are up).
Comment 6 Martin Flöser 2016-11-24 09:02:15 UTC
(In reply to Eike Hein from comment #5)
> Good point about the wakeups, but not sure how a "there was activity" signal
> would leak /what/ gets typed. About the wakeups, perhaps Plasma could
> indicate when it wants to hear about it (and then only do it when the
> tooltips are up).

That's what KIdleTime is for.
Comment 7 NiO 2016-11-24 09:23:37 UTC
I'm just a lowly bug-reporter who knows nothing about KDE's code.. but what about the global hotkeys?  I'm not sure how that works internally, but there is something always listening for key presses in the background.  Can that be coerced into firing off a message to the task manager in some useful way?
Comment 8 Eike Hein 2016-11-24 09:41:49 UTC
Beer,

the problem is that as Martin points out you really don't want to wake up plasmashell to wake up every time the user presses a key (it's a battery eater, for one).
Comment 9 NiO 2016-11-24 09:59:15 UTC
That makes sense, thanks.  If this can't be fixed by keyboard input, it's no big deal.  

The main problem is that if you click on an item in the task manager and leave the cursor on it after clicking, the preview box pops up. I think this is pretty common behavior which is why it happens to me so much.. example: click Konsole -> remove hand from mouse -> start typing -> preview box pops up

Maybe the best solution would be to simply hide the popup for a taskbar item immediately after clicking it if the cursor is still on top of it.
Comment 10 Martin Flöser 2016-11-24 10:42:33 UTC
(In reply to Beer from comment #7)
> I'm just a lowly bug-reporter who knows nothing about KDE's code.. but what
> about the global hotkeys?  I'm not sure how that works internally, but there
> is something always listening for key presses in the background.  Can that
> be coerced into firing off a message to the task manager in some useful way?

No, global shortcut handling doesn't listen to all key presses. It only listens for the registered shortcuts, e.g. Alt+Tab. If you press Alt+meta+tab kglobalaccel would not be notified.
Comment 11 Nate Graham 2017-12-13 23:17:58 UTC
As of Plasma 5.11, the workflow listed in comment #10 is fixed: when the mouse is hovered over an entry to display a tooltip, and then the mouse is clicked, the tooltip disappears even though the cursor is still above the button. Since that's fixed, and an alternative proposed hide-on-typing feature is basically impossible, let's call this resolved now.