[rox-devel] mouse button choices for pinboard

[Matthew W. O. <mat...@we...>]

I've been doing a little thinking regarding the mouse and ROX. I made
a request last week that OroboROX allow switching of workspaces on
mouse scroll events. Jonatan suggested at that point that that might be
a job for ROX-Filer as the pinboard should always be present and because
ROX is already listening for mouse events in the pinboard.

I also requested a root menu for OroboROX, preferably on button 2, and,
again, Jonatan suggested that this might be a good task for ROX since
(a) ROX already is handling button events to the root window, and (b)
ROX has code for handling popup menus already integrated.

Now, I have the following arguments agains each:

* In the case of switching workspaces with the mouse seems like a job
  for the window manager; managing workspaces is part of the window
  manager's job.
* In the case of a root menu, ROX has popup menus to support its own
  functionality, nothing more, nothing less. One of ROX's core strengths
  is that it tries to do a few things really well (pinboard, panel,
  filer), and it leaves any extra functionality up to panel applets.

That said...

Regarding switching workspaces on mouse scroll events, not all window
managers do this. An *option* for ROX to listen to scroll events on the
pinboard and switch workspaces would allow consistency of behaviour
across window managers when using ROX, and also belay the need to turn
on things like the blackbox hack (which I wrote.. ;-), especially when
combined with the next suggestion.

As for the popup menu, I think it would be within the ROX philosophy for
an *option* to *run* *a* *program* on button 2 events on the pinboard
(much like the option of terminal to use in the filer). This would allow
the user to select a menuing program -- perhaps ROX-Menu -- that could
be used. Again, this sort of option could provide consistency of
behaviour, since then the root menu is no longer dependent on the window
manager.

In these ways, ROX still isn't being everything for everyone, but
instead providing tools for customizing their environment.

Thoughts?

-- 
Matthew Weier O'Phinney
http://weierophinney.net/matthew/