Drag and Drop needs to be streamlined from Maximized window

[mikey]

When Dragging and Dropping in Unity from a Maximized window there are a number of problems that make it extremely difficult to do.

Firstly Window switching with [Alt]+[Tab] is inactive when the Drag Drop is in process preventing the user from switching away from the maximized window.

Secondly, when starting Drag Drop from a maximized window Unity unhides up the Unity application bar, however using the bar is extremely cumbersome and takes a minimum time of 7 seconds to select the desired Drop window. These are the steps required to carry out a Drag and Drop using the Unity application bar:

(1) Start Drag, exposing the Unity application bar.
(2) Drag over the application which has a window you want to drop into
(3) Hover over the application for 2 seconds for it to be selected which opens a window Expose for the application
(4) Drag over the Exposed window you wish to drop into
(5) Hover for 3 seconds for the Exposed window to select it
(6) Wait for the Exposed window select animation to finish
(7) Drop the text into the now focused window

There are a number of problems with this process:

(*) The hovertime required to select at each stage is too long
(*) Expose is started even when there is only one window for the application so it serves no purpose, often creating an unnecessary step
(*) Dropping onto the window during the Expose does not work, which is reasonable to assume it would
(*) Dropping onto the window while the selected window from Expose is being animated to the foreground does not work and it can be difficult to tell at what exact point the animation has ended

[mikey (abc-mikey)]

Please note that I am aware that there are a number of similar bugs but none were clear about the issue.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/738636
https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/770073
https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/770099

Also I have tried reporting this as a feature request but was directed to submit a bug

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/28289/

[mikey (abc-mikey)]

Sorry

https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/770099

is not the same bug (after reviewing video).

[лист (leaf-2)]

To add to these problems:
Context: Running Nautilus in full screen mode.
Action: Dragging a file from a directory into one of the shortcuts on the left of the nautilus window.
What goes wrong: The Unity launcher bar pops out, obscuring the shortcuts, making them unusable.

The unity bar pops out well before the drag reaches the left edge of the screen, so it's not the case that one say has to bump into the left edge before there is a problem. I tried to solve this by setting the launcher to open only when I move the mouse to the top left corner of the screen, however that didn't alter a thing when dragging a file in Nautilus.

[лист (leaf-2)]

Ditto my last comment when using Evolution.

I tried to move the launcher bar to somewhere else to sidestep the problem but it seems that isn't possible:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/668415/comments/2

although I don't see why keeping the launcher bar close to the ubuntu button conflicts with making the bar moveable. The button could move too!

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[zzarko (zzarko-gmail)]

I just tried 12.04 beta 2 and I still don't know how to drag-and-drop between maximized windows by default... The launcher acts "smart" and highlights only programs that are registered for file type that I'm dragging, but that doesn't solve probelm when program isn't associated with a file type (for example, if I want to drag file to e-mail application, or gmail tab in firefox).

The only solution I have found so far is to set Compiz Scale plugin to be activated when mouse is in screen corner. Then, I can start dragging, activate Scale, and select another window.

[zzarko (zzarko-gmail)]

The soultion with Scale plugin doesn't work anymore for windows id different workspaces in 12.04, as Scale plugin only shows windows from current workspace.