Launcher - Launcher should never autohide when the cursor is positioned over the Launcher (e.g. When a spread ends)

This behavior was added at the request of mark. We need to discuss it.

IIRC, I said that it can auto-hide if the cursor is still for a period
of time. You should be able to invoke the launcher, click on an app,
leave the cursor where it is, and the auncher should hide after a period
(perhaps 2s) of mouse inactivity.

Mark

This is exactly what happens.
The period of time was 1s initially, reduced by Jason to 750ms to all "wait" activity (like leaving launcher and such…)

I marked Bug #750604 as a duplicate of this bug. I hope it’s okay to include my original description here, as I think it contributes to the discussion.

When switching an application using the launcher, the launcher looses focus and hides. This conflicts with the use-case where one wants to use the launcher to switch windows of an application. I hope the following description explains the issue:

Open Evolution Mail, compose a new message, open a web browser (all fullscreen).

Aim: Switch to Evolution’s main window.
 What I do: Open the launcher and click on the Evolution icon. It brings the composer window to front. After a second or so, the launcher hides automatically. Open the launcher again, click the evolution icon again which triggers exposé, and choose the Evolution main window.
 What I expect: Open the launcher and click on the Evolution icon. It brings the composer window to front, but the launcher stays open. A second click on the Evolution icon triggers exposé and I can choose the Evolution main window.
 Problems with current behaviour: The first issue is a usability issue, as switching to any other window than the last active one of an application requires more steps than necessary. The second one is the risk of incidentally triggering an unwanted action. In my setup, the Evolution icon is the top one in the launcher. Thus, it is exactly above the send button of the mail composer. When switching to the composer, the launcher still is visible because the hide animation takes some time, but it does not receive the events. So when I click the icon again to switch Evolution windows, the send button receives the click event instead of the launcher icon. Similar situations might occur with other applications.

I have the same problem as described here, with a fresh 11.04 install, on an Asus EeePC 900, all updates applied.

After switching from one (full-screen) application to another, the launcher auto-hides while hovering it. Also when you move the mouse pointer to the edge again, the launcher re-appears, but immediately auto-hides as soon as you move the mouse away from the edge. This behaviour is persistent until you hover the Ubuntu icon in the top panel.

I might add: while this behaviour is due, the expose function also won't work. When clicking on a launcher with two (or more) active windows, all windows appear instead of triggering expose. The second time, however, expose triggers as normal, the panel will stay visible (and unfolds bottom -stacked- icons) and the buggy behaviour ends.

Maybe related: It seems that while switching trough windows, at random interval, the launcher immediately disappears and won't appear unless you hover the Ubuntu icon in the top panel.

I'm sorry. please ignore the expose comment. This seems the normal behaviour.

After installing the proposed updates, the launcher still auto-hides when you switch programs (or start one) when there's a maximized window. However, when I point the mouse to the edge and the launcher re-appears, it doesn't immediately auto-hide anymore, until you click it again. This is much better! Thanks for that. :)

But: the auto-hide delay is definitely less than 2 seconds. It's closer to 500ms. If you move the mouse within this time frame the launcher doesn't hide while hovering it. If you hold it still, it does. I still think the delay should be much higher (or at least configurable), or better even: it should only hide when not hovering it.

It still happens (even while I'm aware of this) that I accidentally click something in the window below, while I intended to click an icon in the launcher.

I guess that the correct solution in this case is to always wait for the defined timeout when a click occurs on the launcher before hiding it.
So, every time a click is done in the launcher the bar should always wait some time then, if the mouse has not been moved in the middle time, it can safely autohide.

I had filed bug #775062 where I felt the launcher was hiding too fast (under dodge/auto hide modes). I will mark that ticket as a duplicate since the solution mentioned here (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/745707/comments/2) is my expectation as well.

The situation have got worse in Oneiric, now when you click on an icon in the launcher and then move the cursor within the launcher it will still hide this is really annoying

The real solution would still be: never autohide an object while hovering! This is so annoying and unintuitive. This is rule of thumb in User Experience. It should never happen, ever.

I agree. I prefer launcher never hide when hover. To me this becomes most annoying in Unity.

I agree, this is the most annoying thing about unity window management and must be corrected by Ubuntu 12.04, the latest. The goal is usability and what the user wants to accomplish, the launcher should not escape from under the cursor assuming the user does not need it anymore. Rather than focusing on eye candy, the basics of usability should be corrected first and eye candy later.

@John, did you see comments #1, #2, and #3, this doesn't conflict with:
1. click on a launcher icon
2. if you don't move for 750ms, the launcher will hide.

and
1. click on a launcher icon
2. move the mouse immediatly, the launcher won't hide.

both of those behaviors being a design request for 11.04?

Can you please explain the logic behind this design request. Such a counterintuitive behavior is not necessary so I am wondering why it was implemented this way, to annoy the users and assume they are retarded.

Common sense would tell you that this is a bad decision, anytime a user interface element hides and goes against what the user wants along with wasting their time, that is a bad decision.

This bug was fixed in the package unity - 6.4.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (6.4.0-0ubuntu1) quantal-proposed; urgency=low

  [ Łukasz 'sil2100' Zemczak ]
  * New upstream release.
    - Software Center add to launcher icon animation is delayed when the
      launcher is in auto-hide mode (LP: #1012896)
    - Home lens: Applications show up in Music category (LP: #1040101)
    - WARN unity.hud.hud Hud.cpp:185 Attempted to close the hud connection
      without starting it (LP: #1039451)
    - Text field textures do not update when maximum width changes.
      (LP: #1037187)
    - An application is closed if manually removed from favorites on gsettings
      (LP: #1032157)
    - The switcher (Alt+Tab) is showing incorrect windows after using Deskop
      Wall (Ctrl+alt+<direction>) (LP: #1031959)
    - Dragging icons to reorder -away from launcher causes the dragged icon
      image edges to fade away(cut off) (LP: #1026247)
    - Screen flickers when changing launcher icon size. (LP: #1024113)
    - Arrow for indicating lenses points empty space on alt+F2 (LP: #998752)
    - [previews] Music album tracks do not have a scroll-bar when needed.
      (LP: #1039462)
    - [USE_MODERN_COMPIZ_GL] With unity scrollbar support enabled, hotplugging
      monitors doesn't work (LP: #1039410)
    - [previews] Track titles aren't escaped (LP: #1039020)
    - Launcher - Edge of tiles (with backlight disabled) is too opaque
      (LP: #1038138)
    - [USE_MODERN_COMPIZ_GL] Benchmark window appears behind the Unity shell
      now (LP: #1036609)
    - [GLES] [USE_MODERN_COMPIZ_GL] Unity shell (Launcher and Panel) are
      missing if framebuffer_object is disabled (LP: #1036569)
    - [USE_MODERN_COMPIZ_GL] Benchmark window is mostly invisible, shrunken
      and displaced (LP: #1036528)
    - Unity quicklist menu items leak memory (LP: #1036338)
    - Icon resized between 32 - 48 - 64 look jaggy (LP: #1036231)
    - [Regression] Hideous low-res icon when using the HUD with autohide
      enabled. (LP: #1035951)
    - [regression] Selecting an item of the BFB quicklist when the dash is
      open, causes it to hide (LP: #1035641)
    - Launcher - Switch on "backlight toggles" mode by default (LP: #1033866)
    - Unity spends 15% of time in PlacesGroup::ComputeContentSize when opening
      dash (LP: #1033306)
    - Launcher dragged icon is not redrawn when the mouse pointer is not moved
      (LP: #1032700)
    - Bottom - Up key navigation is broken in dash filterbar (LP: #1028810)
    - Launcher - SD card can not be ejected by drag-n-dropping to trash
      (LP: #960910)
    - Alt-tab - The app name in the integrated menu should not change during
      Alt-tab switching (LP: #950782)
    - Dash - If only one Category Header is displayed, it should be
      automatically expanded (LP: #950710)
    - Launcher - Unity mouse wheel scroll too small (LP: #906072)
    - boot moves desktop icons (LP: #886667)
    - Alt-tab - Reduce the spread delay for all items other than the initial
      item the select lands on after alt-tab opens (LP: #838232)
    - Launcher - Launcher should never autohide when the cursor is positioned
      over the Launcher (e.g. When ...

After a tile is released from a dragging, as if the user wanted to change its location, the Launcher still hides.

I think we should open a new bug, as this is a different issue.
Moving to bug #1053978

Removed milestone 6.8.0. This fix was released in 6.4.