I’m having problems with my muscle memory from windows, where I usually switch windows by moving the mouse to the bottom of the screen and click. (so I only have to position the cursor horizontally, nor vertically)
This works fine in windows, but for some reason in KDE, nothing happens. (But I can properly switch windows by clicking 1 pixel above the bottom edge…)
Does anyone know if this can be made to work?
There’s actually some difference between openSuSe and KUbuntu, with the former adding a bit of margin both above and below the buttons, but even in KUbuntu, without margins, I can’t switch windows by clicking on the bottom edge of the buttons:
I too would like to understand a bit more about switching between the two windows I have in my taskbar.
Is there a default switch key sequence if what you suggest will not work?
Can I get rid of the dual window configuration altogether?
If it’s not clear: when my cursor is at the bottommost edge of the screen, on an application button on the taskbar, nothing happens when I click.
If I go 1 pixel upwards, it opens up the application the button is for…
Which is what I would expect: clicking anywhere on the icon that represents an application to be started then starts that application. This has nothing to do with already open windows (which are in my configuration at the right of the icons). The application will start as many times as you click on the icon.
Let me rephrase it:
Applications are already running, hence there are icons on the task bar. (as visible on the screenshots)
Regardless of which (already running) application button I click, if I click on the bottommost edge on the task bar (vertically. Horizontally, the cursor is on the button for that particular application), nothing happens.
If I click even 1 pixel above the bottommost edge, the application gets put into the foreground…
I assume that you are using KDE Plasma. But you have not indicated whether that is Plasma with X11 or Plasma with Wayland. I don’t know if that make a difference.
I have my system set to “focus follows mouse”, so I don’t have to click at all to switch windows. And I have the task bar set to “auto-hide” and maybe that also makes a difference.
I tried to reproduce what you describe in a KVM virtual machine. I was able to switch windows by clicking on the task bar entry for that window. If I try to move down one pixel from where it works, then I see an indication that it wants to resize the whole KVM window. So I have moved out of the window range within the virtual machine and am seeing the entire virtual machine as a window on my host system.
What I click on an icon that represents a window that it is not in focus and not minimalised, it becomes in focus (and on the foreground).
When I click on the same representing a window that is in focus, the window minimalises.
When I click on the same representing a minimalized window it unminimalises and goes to the foreground and gets focus.
Those “icons” are in fact rectangles with an icon at the left and a text alongside it. All within a borderline (grey when the window is in focus, light blue when I hover over one and invisible otherwise). When my mouse is just beneath that borderline (there are a few pixels left there) the same things happen and also for the few pixels above the border until the upper end of the panel… Thus the are in fact rectangles from the top of the panel to the bottom But I normally of course hit somewhere inside the border. Colours and shape may depend on the theme of course.
But this what happens here, and what I expect to happen.
However there are a lot of configuration possibilities. More then I ever would like to try.
In the meantime, when trying to record the behavior with key-mon running (to illustrate, I’m in fact clicking the left mouse button, not holding it down), I’ve found that it’s the mouse left clicks that get “stuck” on screen edges:
Whenever I left click with the mouse (which in essence is a mouse button down, a few 100ms of pause and a mouse button up) on any screen edge (top/bottom/left/right), the mouse button up event gets postponed for about 0.5-1s after the mouse has been moved.
This results in a dragging event whenever the mouse is moved…
