Focus discussion

[TonicArtos]

I've thought about this a little and I think there are two things that are important for nicely handling focus.

1. Keyboard focus switching is important. My thought is to add a double tap feature, one tap toggles the DDT visibility, double tap switches focus. Specifically:

   visible, focused

   • single tap - hide DDT and focus remembered window.
   • double tap - focus remembered window.

   visible, unfocused

   • single tap - hide DDT
   • double tap - focus last DDT, and remember window focusing away from.

   hidden

   • single tap - show DDT, and remember window focusing away from.
   • double tap - show DDT, and remember window focusing away from.

2. It should be easy to tell at a glance whether DDT is focused. Visual feedback for a focus change from a click or key press should be substantial enough to draw attention and give a feeling of action completion.

   appearance Visual differences in appearance can be foreground and background colour swaps, and changes in window translucency. Also possible is a desaturation option for the unfocused state.

   animation The transition between the focus state should be animated briskly, but fluidly. Translucency and saturation is easy to animate, colour changes are a little less straight forward, but can be explored.