weird bug where mouse pointer sticks to x11 windows
weird bug where mouse pointer sticks to x11 windows
- Subject: weird bug where mouse pointer sticks to x11 windows
- From: Vernon Williams <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 22:56:53 -0500
Monday, April 5, 2010, 9:25pm
This is to report a minor bug, where the mouse pointer sticks to an
x11 window after a certain sequence of events.
This bug has been around for a long time, at least since Panther.
I am not sure about Tiger, since I leapfrogged from Panther to
Leopard last year on my PowerPC G5. It is still around on Leopard,
but it has morphed and is less annoying than on Panther, and some
months ago I finally figured out how to reliably reproduce it, am just
now finally getting around to reporting it.
I see it fairly frequently when I am programming, due to the (perhaps
unusual) nature of my programming practices.
I am usually editing a file (often C) with nedit in a background window,
fired up from Terminal via a script. When I get to a good point, I
compile
it in Terminal via a script, check for errors, fix any I find, edit
some more,
and repeat the process until the routine is finished. The editor window
stays open until I am done, unless I have to stop prematurely.
I also keep previous copies, have a script that does a file difference
on
the current version of a file and the previous version, using a file
difference
program of my own that supports color (syntax color for various
languages,
different background colors for context above or below, highlighting
differences within individual lines with characters removed highlighted
in red and characters inserted highlighted in green, with coloring done
by ANSI escapes sequences, HTML 4, or Mac or PC rich text, depending
upon the option chosen).
After a compilation to check for errors, I often run the file difference
program if there are no errors, to check to make sure that the changes
I have made are really the ones I want to make. The main program
is in FORTRAN 90, run by a script, with output in rich text piped into
TextEdit to display the difference in color in a background window).
The upshot of doing all this is that it is not instantaneous, can take
a few seconds if it is a big file. Once I have fired off the diff,
then I
normally drag the nedit window from the center of the screen to the
top and right, so I can see both it and the diff window when it comes
up. Often the diff window comes up just as I am doing this, and this
is when the mouse pointer sticks to the nedit window, which I may
see several times a day.
The sticking occurs if the diff window comes up just as I have pushed
the nedit window against the Mac menu bar, so that the mouse pointer
continues on into the menu bar before I let up on the mouse button.
When I let up on the mouse button, it is not recognized, and when I
move the mouse pointer out of the Mac menu bar back into the nedit
window title bar, it attaches itself there, and if I move the mouse
pointer around, the nedit window follows it.
Fortunately, there is an easy workaround on Leopard (so it is no longer
so annoying as on Panther), by just clicking the mouse button in the
nedit
window, after which I can move the mouse pointer out of the nedit window
title bar.
On Panther, when you moved the mouse pointer out of the Mac menu
bar, the nedit window would move as soon as the mouse pointer moved,
so that the pointer was still attached to the nedit window but just
above
it, so that you could not get the pointer into the nedit window to
click on
it to make things normal again. The solution there was to move the
mouse pointer over another nedit window (or other X11 window) and
click on it, or bring up another such window first by some way or other
if none was already open. This whole process was sometimes moderately
aggravating, especially before I figured out how to get out of it.
I have been playing with the problem recently to determine the extent
of it and to find a simple and consistent way to reproduce it.
The problem seems to occur when you move any X11 window against
the Mac menu bar, so that the mouse pointer continues on into the
Mac menu bar but has not been released, as a standard Mac window
comes up.
It does not happen if both windows are standard Mac windows.
A simple way to do it is to run "xterm &" from Terminal, then open
some large C file from Terminal with Xcode (as "open big.c") with
Xcode not already running (so it normally takes a few seconds to
come up initially), then move the xterm window to the Mac menu bar,
let the mouse pointer continue on into the Mac menu bar, and hold
the mouse button down until the C file comes up in Xcode. Then
release the mouse button, move the mouse pointer out of the Mac
menu bar, and the xterm will follow it until you click in the xterm.
This is 100 percent reproducible.
I am currently on OSX 10.5.7, with XQuartz 2.3.3.2 (xorg-server
1.4.2-apple42). I have not upgraded (being satisfied with the
system I have and not wanting to introduce new bugs without
any reason to believe this one might be fixed), so I can't say if
it happens in later versions of OSX or X11, but I suspect it still
does, since it has been around so long and is obviously not likely
to be a commonly noticed bug.
I just tested it on my Intel MacBook Pro (also on 10.5.7 and the
same X11 version as above), and the mouse sticking occurs
there as well, though with a slight difference, as it is sometimes
possible to move the mouse pointer out of the x11 window title
bar by moving it upwards (but not downwards) without being
next to the Mac menu bar.
Vernon Williams
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