Auto-hide function doesn't work well, avant freezes or does not reappear

[Darkmaster]

First my specs.
I'm running AWN on an Intel Mac Mini and on an Intel Macbook, I also run it on an Asus A6T laptop, all of these computers are running Ubuntu Feisty full updated with compiz fusion. Since I don't like to mess with the code, I run AWN from a precompiled source, this one:

deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/ feisty avant-window-navigator

That's because the package from Trevino is really buggy in my experience and it even shows graphics issues on the bar. This source I use is often updated with all of the new releases of AWN, so I consider it reliable.

My problem is related to the auto-hide feature, it simply doesn't work well and shows a lot of defects, in all of the versions I tryed, these defects had never been fixed. Listing them:

1) When it hides, if I move my mouse on the bottom of the screen to make it appear again, sometimes, awn just doesn't appear but I occasionally see the icons jumping!

2) If AWN is hiding and I move again my mouse over it, maybe during the animation to close or open a window, while AWN is transforming and moving it often happens that all the icons disappear, the bar remains freezed and shown (Not hidden) and only defreezes if I open a new app or I close one. That is, only if I induct to the bar a change in the icons it shows.

3) When AWN is hidden, I cannot drag and drop an icon over it because it won't automatically appear if my mouse is dragging an icon. To have it appear I must have a normal mouse, without any icon, and sometimes it doesn't appear anyway (See point 1). Now that there's a recycle bin applet it would be really usefull to be able to drag and drop something from anywhere to the trash in AWN, like I do in OSX, but if awn doesn't reappear I cannot do it so the trash applet becomes useless unless I use awn without autohide and in my opinion AWN without autohide is useless. Because it's too big and on an on, a personal problem, I know, I can't use OSX's dock of course if it doesn't autohide. So this is maybe the nastiest of all of the bugs I found in AWN.

It looks like the autohide feature is really buggy. Is it normal or do you think it is related to the package I use? That's because I have this problem in every single PC I tryed AWN on.

[Miika-Petteri Matikainen (mpmatikainen)]

Are you still having these problems? At least that drag and drop issue with autohide is now fixed in the latest bzr revision.

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

Yes, I'm still having that problem and looks like none is solved. Not even the drag something on the autohided bar. I take my updates from:

deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/ feisty avant-window-navigator

and am using the bzr version. I hope this is the last one or one of the latest: 0.1.2-bzr34-1

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

Latest bazaar version is 38, your package is a not up-to-date, you can either wait a few days for it to be updated or compile AWN from source (howto - https://launchpad.net/awn).

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

No problem, I'll wait, maybe the mainter of the repo has taken a summer break. I'll post the result of the future update here!

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

while I wait for point 3 to be solved, I noticed that point 1 seems to be solved. It is now a long time that I lower the mouse to awn and it always appears. Hope it's solved for real :)

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

Hello everyone, today I got an update and now my awn is version
bzr38-1
so I think it's the latest. Sorry to say but the bug 3) is NOT solved, it just got weirder.
Before this update the bar just didn't want to show if I carried an icon over it. Now, as before, often it does not show but the icons start jumping as if they where triggered, for example, the recicle bin gets up a little but remains almost invisible.
Another number of times, if I move the mouse laterally while keeping it at the bottom of the screen, the bar appears and the suddenly dissappears as I move the mouse. I also proved that it disappears even if I keep the mouse still. Remember this bug happens only while dragging an icon on the hidden bar... that is also a baaaaad bug because I cannot add any icon to the bar by drag and dropping it unless I open the awn preferences, disable autohide, drag the icon, see it be added and then open again preferences, enable again autohide... crazy of course :\ and absolutely to be fixed...

I also added a Video, it shows only the bottom right part of my screen, the very bottom... it's really better to see it in action that trying to explain it writing...

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

uhm, launchpad misunderstood when I wrote the number of the bug... of course I was referring to the number 3 of the bugs I mentioned in this thread... sorry.

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

I can confirm that point 2 is still unsolved: the bar occasionally freezes with no icons showing. Only opening a new program (Adding an icon) or closing an opened one (Deleting an icon) makes the bar wake up again.

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

There has been an update today, I can confirm that bug number 3 is still unsolved. I noticed that the bar appears when I drag an icon or an object over the launcher! This works pretty good. If I drag an icon above an applet, like the trash bin, the bar autohides itslef.
So, if I directly drag an icon over the trash bin or over a stack applet, the bar doesn't appear at all, even if the icon of the applet tryes to raise itself.

See the attached video for better understanding of the problem.
In the video you'll also see the cube rotating sometimes... this is due to the fact that I accidentally moved the icon over that of an opened application in another face of the cube, so no problem about this.

[Neil J. Patel (njpatel)]

Hi,

The weirdness of autohide is unfortunately part of the 'magic' awn has to do to get everythign to look good and stay on top of each other. This is something that I am working on, but can't guarantee will work until I can start on some areas from scratch nevertheless I am working on it, and will update here if/when I get some results.

[Pietro Battiston (toobaz)]

If it can help, here's how I often reproduce the "doesn't reappear" bug.

I'm running Compiz 0.3.6 on Xgl with awn from deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/syzygy42/ feisty.

I put awn in the "session" list, so that it is started every time my gnome session starts. But every time, it starts hidden (as set in my preferences) but, if there is a maximized window, doesn't come up. Instead, if no windows cover the bottom, all is OK. If I close awn and restart it, the problem is gone.

[Jack Deslippe (jdeslip)]

Has this been fixed in any of the recent builds? I am still using 0.2.1

[Mark Lee (malept)]

I'm sure Neil will update this bug when he finds the time to work on autohide (probably as part of his 0.3 rewrite).

[Jack Deslippe (jdeslip)]

Any news on this? It seems AWN development has slowed almost to a halt...

[Mark Lee (malept)]

I don't think Neil has found time to work on autohide yet.

[Biji (biji)]

auto hide will fail when we move mouse too fast from panel... but when moving slowly it will hide 100%

[Tiler (a-1-a)]

The behavior I am noticing is that if I wake it at the bottom of the screen without actually passing the pointer over the bar, it won't hide. If I swing the pointer over the actual bar, it will hide when I get back to somewhere around mid screen, horizontally speaking.

[yam fry (kevinpmcmanus)]

I am having the same issue as Tiler. Is there a setting that fixes this? I'm using Intrepid 64-bit.

[Warren Seine (warren-seine)]

Same here. Tiler is right.
It sounds like a really bug in the algorithm, not a platform-specific issue.

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

This will be fixed in the rewrite.

[Tiler (a-1-a)]

Please excuse my lack of specs. ASUS EeePC 1000, Ubuntu EEE, 2gb RAM.

[Tiler (a-1-a)]

Michal,

I really appreciate it and look forward to the change. Thank you!

I think I jinxed it.

It seems as if there is a spot about 1/3 the way from the top of the screen, near the middle that activates it. Starting today, when the mouse is traveling up or down it will pop up, even if I haven't 'hit' the bottom of the screen. It seems to have just changed today and I forget which Hardy updates hit today.

Heretofore, it popped up only after I moused over the bottom 15% of the screen.

Both situations cause it to pop up without auto-hiding. Anyone else notice a difference today?

[Warren Seine (warren-seine)]

Tiler,

I did fix the bug on my side (which caused another terrible bug, the
reason why I did not post it). Don't worry about the cause, it is a
bug in the algorithm.

FYI, it's a synchronisation bug between "hidden" and "hiding" in
AwnSettings. When you left the dock from the bottom, it causes a
"leave" event, then immediately after a "show" event (because your
mouse is in the "hot" zone that makes the dock appear).

Anyway, since AWN is in complete rewrite and that AwnSettings will
die, I'll let the developers restart from scratch (which is a much
better idea than patching).

Just wait for AWN 3. I'm sure it won't be long.
--
Warren Seine

[Jan Hink (jhink)]

Hi,

I don't know if this report is of any use, but I can confirm the auto-hiding bug in version 0.3~bzr489. I'm running Ubuntu 9.04.

I have AWN starting automatically with the system and I have checked both the "auto-hide when not in use" option and the "keep below maximized windows". But when I open some window and the window overlaps the AWN panel, then the panel doesn't come up when I hover my mouse over it. And obviously, when the window is maximized, I can't get to the panel at all. The only solution to this for me is to kill AWN and restart it, then everything works fine.

Regards,
Jan Hink

[livigagl (liviux76)]

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem of Jan Hink using Debian Lenny/Squeeze using the Version: 0.2.6-7.
I have just upgraded to the Version: 0.3.2.1-3.

I'll let you know if with this Version the issue persists.

[livigagl (liviux76)]

Using the Version 0.3.2.1-3 the problem persists but now it happens less often.

[Paul Leger (pleger)]

Hi,
I have the same problem on Ubuntu 9.04 Avant Window Navigator 0.3.2. When I checked "auto-hiding" my awn disappears forever. Is there any simple solution for this? Because I want to use that but with this problem I think I could not use it.

Thank you.!

[TheDarkMaster (luca-darkmaster)]

I guess the devels are not that interested on solving this or cannot find a
solution. A year is passed since my bug report and yet the bug is still
there.

2009/7/19 Paul Leger <email address hidden>

> Hi,
> I have the same problem on Ubuntu 9.04 Avant Window Navigator 0.3.2. When I
> checked "auto-hiding" my awn disappears forever. Is there any simple
> solution for this? Because I want to use that but with this problem I think
> I could not use it.
>
> Thank you.!
>
> --
> Auto-hide function doesn't work well, avant freezes or does not reappear
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/130126
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[moonbeam (rcryderman)]

It's fixed in the rewrite branch (0.4).

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

Fixed in 0.4 branch.

[Paul Leger (pleger)]

Hi,
    A naive question. Will the version 0.4 be available in Ubuntu 9.10? Because I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 and I don see this version in the repositories.

Thank you, very much

[Mark Lee (malept)]

Not in the official repositories. However, packages will be available in the testing and release PPAs in the future for Karmic.

Testing: https://launchpad.net/~awn-testing/+archive/ppa

Release: https://launchpad.net/~awn-core/+archive/ppa

[Darkmaster (darkmaster)]

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