submenu expansion delay

[Will Hui]

In the top panel of the GNOME desktop, say I have clicked on the "Applications" menu. This brings up a list of menu items. Now I move the mouse pointer down to the "Internet" menu item and I expect the "Internet" submenu to appear. However, sometimes the system will get preoccupied with loading the "Accessories" submenu as I move my mouse cursor past it.

Result: If it is still loading that submenu by the time my cursor has reached the "Internet" menu item, it will take a second or two before the system realizes that it has to expand the "Internet" submenu since that is what my cursor is currently hovering on.

Expected result: The expected behavior is for the system to immediately start loading whatever submenu the user's mouse pointer is currently hovering on, rather than impose a delay if a submenu you have moused over is still in the process of being loaded.

I consciously notice this issue most often in the Applications menu and the System menu of the top GNOME panel. However, I suspect it is a GTK bug and thus might affect any GTK menu in the system. This bug is not a huge issue, but it is slightly annoying and does increase the perceived latency of the menu system from the user's standpoint.

I am using libgtk2.0-0 2.12.9-3ubuntu4 under Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron).

[Neil Munro (neilmunro-deactivatedaccount)]

Would you say this occurs with compiz enabled?

It MAY in fact be the GTK theme you are using, can you try using different themes and try it again?

[Will Hui (willh126)]

I tried both the "Clearlooks" and "Crux" themes, and I was able to reproduce this problem in both cases.

Without compiz, I have still been able to get a delay to occur, but it is not as pronounced it is with compiz enabled. (I think this has to do with the fact that compiz is performing a fade-in effect on submenu, so it waits for that effect to finish before switching submenus.)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

that's an upstream bug and should be sent to bugzilla.gnome.org by somebody having the issue

[Will Hui (willh126)]

Just an update, I sent it upstream:

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=567671

This appears to be a case of "it's not a bug, it's a feature!" It happens when you navigate menu X and hover over a menu item Y causing submenu Z to pop up. Then if you move your cursor down menu X and towards the right a little bit, the delay will occur. This is intentional; it allows the user to move the mouse directly to a desired menu entry in Z without having to keep it inside the region of menu item Y first.

I have proposed reducing the default menu popdown delay to make this less bothersome in situations where it triggers incorrectly. Not sure if this will be deemed acceptable or not yet.