Launcher does not raise minimized windows consistently

[Jamie Strandboge]

Spread not triggered correctly when a application has a mix of minimized and restored windows and another application is in focus.

To reproduce:
1. launch 4 terminals with 'ctrl+alt+t'
2. minimize one of the terminal windows
3. open firefox such that it is in the foreground and has focus
4. Left click on the terminal icon in the Launcher

Current incorrect behaviour:
5. The minimized terminal window(s) are restored

Desired correct behaviour:
5. The last active non-minimised terminal window ( *not* the window minimised in step 2 above) is brought back into focus.

Subsequently if...
6. The user clicks on the terminal icon in the Launcher a second time
7. A spread of all the terminal windows (both maximised and restored) is displayed.

(the original bug description mentioned two issues, I have narrowed this bug to only focus on issue #2, if issue #1 is still relevant please report as a separate bug)

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

No, it's not, related It's still there even once bug #677577 is fixed. Tanks Jamie for your detailed report :)

[Evgeniy Kirov (evg.kirov)]

Medium? I'm sorry but this more supposed to be like "Critical" (IMO). This is serious usabilty issue, because it's hard to restore minimized window.

I hope It will be fixed to the release date.

[Evgeniy Kirov (evg.kirov)]

I think the problem is that Compiz doesn't show minimized windows in the Scale mode and since Unity/Mutter does I think this is a degradation.

[Fabien Lusseau (fabien-beosfrance)]

Is there any progress on this bug ?

I still have it. (no menu on right clic to choose your window from, nor any fix to choose them from the scale plugin)

[Cameron Hart (bitshifternz)]

I've proposed a fix that raises minimised windows before the scale.

https://code.launchpad.net/~bitshifternz/unity/partial-fix-for-bug-688117

I'm not sure about always going into the scale as suggested by the bug reporter. I tried this and found it annoying is I generally wanted to focus the window that was last active for the application rather than choosing a window every time.

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

Cameron Hart wrote >
>I've proposed a fix that raises minimised windows before the scale.

I gave that (those? ) a try, didn't know if 1072 & 1073 went together so applied both.
If one starts sticking minimized, un-maxed, and even maxed windows of a window group of various workspaces ect. the are too many combos to account for, and to work in one way consistently for all of them

This commit(s) seem to maintain most of the prior behavior of the launcher icon, (which I thought was good) and raise or pick minimized windows of a group similar to the option in 'workarounds'

I only tried the option in 'workarounds' for a short bit - it seemed to cause inconsistent results +
On the face of it, in a short test, this seems a bit more stable than the workaround option, though for all I know maybe they are basically the same thing

[Cameron Hart (bitshifternz)]

Yes you need 1072 and 1073, although I've since found a slightly simpler way of doing the same thing - that is changing the w->activate() in 1072 to w->unmaximize(), then 1073 is not necessary.

I'm not sure what you mean by the option in workarounds?

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

In ccsm > workarounds there is an option to " keep previews of minimized windows", which if enabled would 'pick' minimized windows when clicking on the launcher icon (whether the first or 2nd click depending on circumstances

This seems to work better than that option in that I haven't seen anything go south while trying out

[Cameron Hart (bitshifternz)]

I've made another patch which produces the two test cases that the reporter lists. In both instances the scale plugin is launched with all windows visible.

It behaves consistently in that when clicking on an icon with a single window the window is focused, with multiple windows all windows are displayed through the scale plugin (whether or not they are minimised). Clicking again on the icon will terminate the scale. I believe terminating the scale when clicking on the icon is the intended behaviour according to the comments in the code.

The only case where it isn't consistent is if all windows are minimised, clicking the icon with focus instead of scale. I'm not sure why because from debugging it does appear to be initiating the scale in this case.

The branch is https://code.launchpad.net/~bitshifternz/unity/fix-for-bug-688117

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

The last commit works well here (scale first), have tried on multiple combos of open, minimized windows on one or multiple desktops, with focus on a window of that group or something else.
Also inc. using on a space that has no instances of that window group, open or minimized

At least here don't particularly mind what happens when all are minimized, again some multiple possibilities -
seems to open to the min window(s) if any on that space, otherwise switches to first minimized if on a space with none present
(makes head spin a bit.

[Alex Bell (ubuntu-upb)]

To my mind this bug is serious usability problem, thank you for paying attention.

[Cameron Hart (bitshifternz)]

Doug McMahon wrote
> seems to open to the min window(s) if any on that space, otherwise switches to first minimized if on a space with none present
(makes head spin a bit.

I had noticed that too. I think I could probably stop if from switching to other workspaces unless the user specifically selected a window from another workspace in the spread. I'll have a look into it.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/689733 is related to the workspace switching issues. It didn't seem like a consensus had been reached on that yet though.

[Pascal Valois (pascal-valois)]

could i suggest that when you right click on the icon in unity dash, a "show all windows" link being avaliable.
it would be a good functionality imho.

[Pascal Valois (pascal-valois)]

(and solving this problem too)

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

From my comment on the merge request:

You introduce there a strong design change from what was designed by the design team. I won't merge that without having more clue from them. I changed the bug status to ask some input from design on the change you did. I fear that it's a little bit late for Natty though.

I'll put the merge in "Needs Information" state until design reply (you can already raise design discussion on the ayatana mailing list)

I'm changing this bug to ask for the design team to give its feedback.

[Doug McMahon (mc3man)]

Cameron Hart wrote
>bug/689733 is related to the workspace switching issues. It didn't seem like a consensus had been reached on that yet though.
That seems to be either something of considerable confusion, or if not then it wouldn't hurt to have it clearly stated one way or the other what the intention is.
The option/binding in scale, "Window Picker for Window Group" pulls from all workspaces, and other than for a short time when it broke down a bit has been what has always happened from the launcher icon.

[Patrick Ulbrich (pulb)]

The panel should really really trigger scale if a launcher has more than one window assigned. Every additional click is unintuitive.
I filed a userstory here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/746487

[Guillaume (gufide-g)]

I can see that when you minimize a window, it didn't get unfocus. Then, the lancher, for obscure reason, can't unminimize an already focused window. I just select another one and I can bring back my old window.

[John Lea (johnlea)]

Jamie Strandboge; well spotted and thanks for reporting, this is a critical bug.

[Marco Trevisan (Treviño) (3v1n0)]

This bug is related to bug #783434 and has been partially fixed by my branch lp:~3v1n0/unity/fix-783434. However I'm saying "partially" since it seems that using this fixed branch the previous focussed window is focussed again, but just in terms of keyboard focus. In fact it's not guaranteed that is the first mapped one (I mean, the on on the top level).

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

this particular bug is fixed, there is one issue that i found while trying to reproduce this bug which I reported as bug 852917

[Thilo Cestonaro (tephraim)]

I think this bug isn't fixed yet or the changes aren't in the repos yet.

Try:
open terminal on desktop 4. (do not maximize it)
switch to desktop 1.
open terminal on desktop 1.
Minimize terminal on desktop 1.
Left click on terminal entry in unity.

Expected behaviour:
show all terminal windows in scale mode.

current behaviour:
does nothing at all.

[Thilo Cestonaro (tephraim)]

After todays update it works!