Bug 458976 - Simplify and/or explain focus stealing prevention modes
Summary: Simplify and/or explain focus stealing prevention modes
Status: CONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: systemsettings
Classification: Applications
Component: kcm_kwinoptions (show other bugs)
Version: 5.25.5
Platform: Other Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWin default assignee
URL:
Keywords: usability
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2022-09-10 20:51 UTC by Nicolas Fella
Modified: 2023-04-12 16:00 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Description Nicolas Fella 2022-09-10 20:51:38 UTC
The window behavior KCM has several values for configuring the focus stealing behavior: None, Low, Medium, High, Extreme

These names do not tell anything about what kind of behavior they are introducing, so the user has no idea what suits their needs.

Either the names should be more expressive or an additional explanatory text should be given
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2022-09-13 18:31:37 UTC
Indeed.
Comment 2 Natalie Clarius 2022-09-13 18:53:01 UTC
That's what the help page is for, no?

Do you think these explanations are to short?  

Or do you think an inline explanation label should be added? Imo, if one starts doings this, it gets difficult to draw the line where to stop doing this because all of the focus stuff is not self-explanatory, and the more help is mixed into the main UI, users may even become less aware that an extra help page with more complete and more detailed explanations exists.  

Imo, it is better to keep a dedicated, well worked out help page than try to squeeze half complete information into the already cluttered UI. I just recently gave the window behavior docbook an overhaul and can try give that ancient specialist stuff some more love.
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2022-09-13 18:56:44 UTC
The problem is that almost nobody reads the help page. And it shouldn't be expected that a feature is incomprehensible unless you do read it.

If this were a QML KCM, we could use KCM.ContextualHelpButton to provide the information semi-inline without cluttering up the page with lots of text.
Comment 4 Natalie Clarius 2022-09-13 19:03:13 UTC
I can somewhat agree with this.  

Maybe for the meantime we could add a short sentence what focus stealing in general is about, and refer to help page for more info on the individual options?
Comment 5 Natalie Clarius 2022-09-13 19:08:00 UTC
I would also be in favor of a general reorganization of the window behavior KCM and not display the focus tab which is probably the most complicated as the landing page, but I think that's for another thread.
Comment 6 Natalie Clarius 2022-09-13 21:36:18 UTC
Or maybe explaining the options actually is better because then we could add a note like in the window activation policy that the default is probably what they want.
Comment 7 Natalie Clarius 2022-09-13 21:38:03 UTC
(What I mean is a dynamic label for each option, as opposed to my earlier suggestion of a general explanation for focus stealing prevention.)
Comment 8 Nate Graham 2022-09-13 21:55:33 UTC
(In reply to Natalie Clarius from comment #7)
> (What I mean is a dynamic label for each option, as opposed to my earlier
> suggestion of a general explanation for focus stealing prevention.)

Yeah I think that would be fine.
Comment 9 Natalie Clarius 2022-09-21 00:25:56 UTC
What about the "whatsThis" texts? We actually already have inline help for all of the items in the KCM - except it doesn't seem to be working; I assume these texts are supposed to be shown on hover, but that's not happening for me. This does not necessarily preclude adding a label text in addition and/or porting to QML some time in the future, but it would be nice if we could actually make use of the help we already have. Does someone know what's up with this feature?
Comment 10 Nate Graham 2022-09-22 14:43:44 UTC
WhatsThis text doesn't appear on hover, that's tooltip text.

It needs to be be seen by explicitly invoking "what's this?" mode via the question mark titlebar button (which isn't supported on Wayland). There's also the secondary mode to make it appear when you press Shift while a tooltip for a UI element with WhatsThis text is visible, but that requires that the UI element have a tooltip.
Comment 11 Natalie Clarius 2022-09-22 15:19:02 UTC
Ah, that never occurred to me. I can't get that question mark button to show up anywhere even though it's in the title bar according to the title bar buttons configuration, but thats off topic now.
Comment 12 Bug Janitor Service 2023-04-11 23:50:29 UTC
A possibly relevant merge request was started @ https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/3964
Comment 13 Nate Graham 2023-04-12 16:00:51 UTC
Git commit d25b9ebdb16b78d6ba2190048396d039e8e72289 by Nate Graham.
Committed on 12/04/2023 at 14:03.
Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'.

kcms/rules: improve text for window rules with descriptions

In particular, explain what all of the the focus stealing prevention
and protection settings do.

My understanding of the different modes comes from reading the code
and code comments in activation.cpp.

M  +65   -31   src/kcms/rules/rulesmodel.cpp

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/commit/d25b9ebdb16b78d6ba2190048396d039e8e72289