Going to top left workspace from the bottom right with arrow keys in Compiz-fusion

[st33med]

Binary package hint: compiz

Using arrow keys and an enabled Wall plugin with four workspaces does not work properly when going from bottom right to top left workspace.

Reproduction:
1. Enable Compiz + Wall plugin
2. Make two rows and two columns of workspaces
3. Attempt to switch 'instantly' from bottom right to top left workspace by Ctrl-Alt-Left-Up

What should happen:
It should go to the top-left workspace instantly, just like doing it from other workspaces.

What actually happens:
It goes either to the upper-right or lower-left workspace, depending on what arrow key was hit first. It sticks there until you let go of the arrow key corresponding to the direction it moved.

Description: Ubuntu 8.04
Release: 8.04
Architecture: i386
GPU: Intel 945GMA

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Jun 8 18:14:37 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/compiz
InterpreterPath: /bin/dash
Package: compiz-core 1:0.7.4-0ubuntu6
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: compiz
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-18-generic i686

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

It is not possible to trigger two actions at the exact same time. If you hold Ctrl-Alt then press Up,Left one after the other rapidly it'll work but you can't jam both buttons at the same time and expect it to work.

[Alexander Bethke (oolongbrothers)]

I disagree with th closing of the bug,
of course there is no single event for "top-left", but try the following:

Reproduction:
- Set up the Desktop wall to 2x2

Then try:
- Go to the lower right viewport
- Hold <Ctrl-Alt-Up>, then push <Left>. (The viewport switches up, but not left)

And:
- Go to the lower right viewport
- Hold <Ctrl-Alt-Left>, then push <Up>. (The viewport switches left, but not up)

And:
- Go to the lower right viewport
- Now hold <Ctrl-Alt> and then hit <Left> and <Up> at pretty much the same time (No viewport switching at all, this is what the user experiences when trying to switch the viewport, nothing happening)

Interesting also:
- Go to the lower right viewport
- Hold <Ctrl-Alt-Up> until viewport has switched
- Then in addition, hold <Left> (Nothing happens)
- New release <Up> (The viewport switches left)

Now try the same procedure the other way around, e.g.:
-Start on bottom left
- Hold <Ctrl-Alt-Up> and push <Right> (The viewport switches as expected)

So the problem is actually that the overlapping impression of the keys Left and Up leads to a blocking of either event for that time.

This is bad ux and probably easy to fix once it is acknoledged. This problem is still present in Jaunty and is predestined for the HundresPeperCuts project.

Regards, Alex

[Wolfgang Silbermayr (silwol)]

Travis, I disagree with closing this bug. It may not affect many people, but it does exist. The wall plugin code is also intended to switch to the diagonal adjacent workspaces, this is why the arrow is also pointing there when I move to the bottom right desktop for example. I have taken a look at the code of the wall plugin, but I have not yet found out where exactly the direction is determined. As far as I can see, the plugin is explicitly intended to handle these cases.

[Alexander Bethke (oolongbrothers)]

Can you reproduce the behaviour?
Ask if I should supply some more information.

Regards, Alex

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Compiz in karmic works correctly in all cases you specified.

[Wolfgang Silbermayr (silwol)]

Travis, in which compiz version does it work for you with karmic? I have 0.8.3+git20090917-0ubuntu4 installed, and it does not work for me yet. If you have the same version, I suggest to reopen the bug.

[Ryan Hall (hall-ryan)]

I'm having this exact same problem. Has it been fixed in newer versions of compiz? I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 and my compiz version is 0.8.4-ubuntu2.

[Wolfgang Silbermayr (silwol)]

I just tried it, and it doesn't seem to work yet. I'm setting it to confirmed, as this are now three people having this problem already.

[David Siegel (djsiegel-deactivatedaccount)]

I cannot reproduce this behavior. Ctrl-alt-up-left takes me directly from the lower-right to upper-left workspace.

[Alexander Bethke (oolongbrothers)]

Hm, I cannot reproduce the bug any more either. Neither with Karmic on my home machine nor with Jaunty on my work machine. The problem was still on Jaunty on my home machine before I freshly installed Karmic. That the problem does not show on my Jaunty (upgraded from Interpid) work machine shows that this behaviour seems to depend on further conditions that I have no idea how to find out.
I guess that defeats the hundred-papercuts proposal, as a requirement of that is easy fixability which in turn requires that the error has to be reliably reproducible.

Regards, Alex

[Vish (vish)]

No-one is able to reproduce the problem , Reverting status back to fix released [comment #6]

And closing papercut task.

[Wolfgang Silbermayr (silwol)]

I'm setting it to Opinion, because I can still reproduce it on any vanilla Ubuntu 10.04 with compiz enabled, either newly installed or from the Live-CD.