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Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock List of forums Installation problems | Problèmes à l'installation Three ¿bugs? and some suggestions
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Installation problems | Problèmes à l'installation

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Three ¿bugs? and some suggestions
Godlikearg English 14 Godlikearg [Read]
07 January 2009 à 19:45

Godlikearg, Sunday 28 December 2008 à 09:39


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
Hello everybody. Sorry about the English message, but i don't speak French yet ;p.

I've recently got myself a new PC and started using Cairo-Dock on a daily basis (I had a somewhat crappy CPU before so using it was overkill). After a couple of days using it (version 1.6.3.1), I found three things (don't know if they're precisely bugs or expected behaviours) that are a bit... well, unnatural, for lack of a better word. Here they are and my observations on the subject:

1) I've read about when I experienced this, and I know it is done on purpose. I'm talking about the fact that the zoom animation doesn't work if there is an application demanding attention on the dock. I know that with some animations there would be gli-glitches or stuff like that (e.g. bounce, although I would suggest a bounce animation that doesn't make the icon touch the roof =p). But there are some (like pulse, which is the one I found the tidiest (I don't like animations which distract me from what I'm doing)) which wouldn't be affected. Besides, I've noticed that, while the zoom animation isn't shown, it's still done in background, which means that you may want to click on an empty area of your wallpaper, close to the dock (to lose the focus of a window, or whatever) and you end up focusing/maximizing a window you didn't want to. I don't know the exact implications of showing the zoom animation anyway, but I'm all for it :P.

2) There's an option in the settings which shows an animation each time a window gains focus. Since that animation isn't customizable (at least I looked up and down the whole settings app, and even the plaintext settings file and found nothing about it) I disabled the options. However, (and I do believe this is a bug), with that option disabled, the only way to make an application animation disappear is by clicking its icon directly on the dock. Focusing it with any other method doesn't make the animation go away (which renders the dock pretty unusable since because a window is demanding attention, the zoom effect isn't happening). 2 solutions come to my mind for this: either giving the option to change the focus animation (more like a temporary solution than a permanent one) or implementing the same behaviour when you have the focus animation enabled as well as when you don't.

3) This one I noticed recently. When using other docks (e.g. awn), a launcher's title is updated when that application is running. For instance, the Quod Libet launcher shows the name of the current song when QL is up and running. This doesn't seem to happen on Cairo (though I don't think this should be too hard to implement).

As every time I make such a post, take these as observations and suggestions. I really do want to use Cairo-Dock as my definitive dock (and I'm trying to make it possible :)).

Cheers

Godlike.-

fabounet, Monday 29 December 2008 à 04:34


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
hello, thanks for your remarks !
1/ should be fixed with the v2 (no more shrink down when an animation is playing), however when you go out, until all icons are small (which takes like 1 second), the dock's window remains large, which may still be confusing. resizing the dock little by little is very expensive to X , and then to your CPU
2/ I see the problem, it's probably a bug, I'll chase it
3/ you mean updating the name of the launcher when it takes the application indicator ?

Godlikearg, Monday 29 December 2008 à 07:00


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
Thanks for your reply :).

Regarding 3, yes, I meant exactly that. For example, in the case of a music player, generally the window title gets updated with the currently playing song. If the name of the launcher would be updated, then only by hovering the dock one could see the name of the playing theme, instead of having to go raise that window (which would imply even going to a different desktop ;p).

Another thing that slightly bothers me, but that I wouldn't know how to diagnose/why does it happen, is that sometimes the dock stays zoomed, even after the pointer leaves its area. I tried to reproduce the behaviour, but it's completely random so I wouldn't be able to offer a hand here.

Thanks again, cheers!

Mahfouz, Monday 29 December 2008 à 08:01


Subscription date : 17 November 2008
Messages : 139
In my case, a sub-dock can stay zoomed sometimes. I think it might happen if I click another region quickly while the sub-dock is still up, but very rarely.

Godlikearg, Monday 29 December 2008 à 15:03


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
Yes, but here it happens with my main dock primarily.

fabounet, Wednesday 31 December 2008 à 00:13


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
ok for 3, I'll fix it (the name of an icon is already updated when it's an application icon, but not when it's a launcher icon)
if you find a way to reproduce the zoom bug, I'll fixt it too

Godlikearg, Friday 02 January 2009 à 06:49


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
Thanks!

As for the zoom bug, it seems to happen when clicking on an application that is on another desktop. From here it looks like if I make the pointer leave the dock right after clicking or after waiting a few ms so the newly focused app gains the focus indicator, it doesn't happen. However, there is a time frame right in the middle (I wouldn't know how to measure it in ms other than my bare eyes :P) so that if the pointer leaves the dock in that time frame, the bug gets triggered.

Maybe it is related with that focus indicator?

Edit: tried disabling the focus indicator but couldn't find an option for it anywhere. Drawing the indicator above the icon changes nothing. Also, this bug happens independently of the type of view used (tried with 3D plane and curve and happens in both of them).

fabounet, Sunday 04 January 2009 à 03:58


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
so when you click on the dock, and that this action triggers a change of the current desktop (typically, the cube rotates), then in a certain condition the dock may stay in its "high" position ?
if so, then I think yo will be able to reproduce this bug with the Switcher applet.
I'll try to see what the problem is.

I'm quite surprised about the bug 2, since I handle this case in the same way that I handle the demand of attention.
don't you have some message in the terminal, when an application stops demanding your attention ?

Godlikearg, Monday 05 January 2009 à 20:24


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
Yes, could reproduce it with the switcher applet, but only when it is working in compact mode. Otherwise, when its subdock closes (after I change desktops I move the mouse away from the dock to see if the bug gets triggered. Otherwise if the pointer moves around the dock, triggering animations, the bug won't happen. This also happens on the situation I mentioned earlier), the dock returns back to normal. Other than that, the steps to reproduce the bug are identical to what I described above:

1) Use the switcher applet to change desktops
2) Make the mouse pointer leave the dock not immediately after clicking neither after a second (or less), but in the middle (say, 200/300ms?).

It's very hard to time it. I can only trigger it through trial & error (or everyday use ;p).

Regarding the terminal messages, with which verbosity option should I start cairo-dock? Because debug makes it almost illegible :P.

fabounet, Tuesday 06 January 2009 à 02:47


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
well I have been spending 3 days on this bug and it's just insane.
X sends a leave signal when we change desktop, even if the mouse is still inside (<-- it definitely shouldn't)
it then send an enter signal if we're still inside
the problem occurs when we leave between these 2 signals are received by the dock.
I have made sort of a patch, available to test.

Godlikearg, Tuesday 06 January 2009 à 12:25


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
Can you point me in the right direction in order to download the latest cairo-dock sources and the patch? I'd be happy to test it.

And many many thanks for your great work!!

fabounet, Tuesday 06 January 2009 à 12:36


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
the SVN (possibly with the Mav's script for an easy install)
or the last .deb available on Berlios

but be aware that it's still a beta version

Godlikearg, Tuesday 06 January 2009 à 22:18


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
I use gentoo, I'm accustomed to beta/alpha/pre-alpha/enlightenment versions ;).

Sadly, the behaviour is still the same :(, though I reckon it is harder to trigger the bug (I'd say that out of fifteen times that the zoom bug was triggered before, only one or one and a half is now. Even though it is not fixed, it is massively more usable now :)).

Saw the launcher name thingy great!

Will keep testing it btw. Now since the script screwed up my normal installation (yeah, too lazy to check it/download the English version :P), I will try installing again the SVN version from an ebuild. Absolutely LOVED the new effects, much more refined than the old ones (which was something that I never liked about C-D).

fabounet, Wednesday 07 January 2009 à 12:51


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
too bad, but I'm not totally surprised since I can't reallly solve this problem
personnaly I don't have it anymore, but it's a matter of timing.
I'll try to see if I can reproduce the bug on my PC.

thanks for your debug by the way

Godlikearg, Wednesday 07 January 2009 à 19:45


Subscription date : 28 December 2008
Messages : 21
Anytime fab, thanks!

Cheers!

Installation problems | Problèmes à l'installation

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Three ¿bugs? and some suggestions
Godlikearg English 14 Godlikearg [Read]
07 January 2009 à 19:45


Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock List of forums Installation problems | Problèmes à l'installation Three ¿bugs? and some suggestions Top

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