On 19:06 24 May 2002, Dan Espen <dane_at_mk.telcordia.com> wrote:
| Cameron Simpson <cs_at_zip.com.au> writes:
| > Is there a setting to say "don't overlap the window with the focus"?
| > Mozilla really really annoys me. I insists on scattering its windows
| > across the screen, which is a major PITA when middle-clicking my way down
| > an index or suchlike, making several windows, inevitably overlapping my
| > mouse at some point and screwing things up. [...]
| > Can I preempt Mozilla's placement fetishism more effectively?
|
| Do you know you can get Mozilla to open new windows in tabs?
Yes, but it's only useful to me about half the time (and my unconscious
keyboard habits know the "open new window" trick too well). For news
item windows the tabbed approach should work very nicely - I will be making
a conscious effort to use it more.
For other windows I want to deal with as standalone entities, either
for positioning purposes (eg to put then side by side) or for putting on
other desktops etc, it doesn't cut it. I already have fast and convenient
methods of window placement and arrangement mediated by FVWM, and using
a separate Mozilla-internal method for them seems ... clunky.
Also, Mozilla seems to want me to adopt a tabbed or new window approach
unilaterally. I would normally expect to use both. But I can't seem
to bind, say, middle-click to "new window" and something else equally
convenient such as "shift middle click" to "new tab". I must pick one or
the other and dig tediously through a menu popup for the the converse.
Other tools (fvwm, mutt, screen(?)) whih have key bindings let you attach
functions to arbirary things fairly easily. I gather such a mechanism
exists for Mozilla, but it's either ill documented or opaque. I have
yet to find a clear description of where to put such configs or what
functions one might attach to keys or mouse buttons.
Finally, I frequently create new Mozilla windows from the keyboard.
I have several tiny scripts which use netscape-remote to get mozilla
to open a window with a search result ("fm" for freshmeat, "google"
for google, etc) or more generally with an arbitrary URL. Of a morning I
routinely say "hi comics" which opens several comic pages at once and a
bit later "hi nerd" which opens some nerdly news channels like slashdot,
and so forth. In the current scheme I must wait for them all to pop up
(which is quite slow often) before I can do things. If they popped up
in the place I wanted (as my Netscape windows used to, for it does obey
its geometry settings) I could happily process email or something in my
shell window while it happened.
| I don't normally like MIDI applications but in the case of the
| browser, it seems like the best way to go.
MIDI? I only know the electronic music acronym. What do you mean here?
Now, Mozilla is merely the most painful offender in this regard.
While I have taken some care to place new windows, and new terminals
always pop up in exactly the same place for me (which is what I want)
it would be quite handy for random apps to use SmartPlacement, but to
avoid overlapping the focus window as a priority, or perhaps the mouse
alone (in focus follows mouse mode, which would suffice to keep that
window usable, though visible is also desirable). I rarely have much
root window showing, so new windows usually must overlap something.
On reflection I suspect I should have taken this to fvwm-workers.
I'll get Moz1.0rc3 this morning and see if its tabbedness is more
flexible. Thanks for the suggestion,
--
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 cs_at_zip.com.au http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/
Archiving the net is like washing toilet paper! - Leader Kibo
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Received on Fri May 24 2002 - 18:39:44 BST