When I have to copy many little items from a small window into an app that fills most of the desktop space focus gets lost from the source which I then have to bring back up to front using Alt-Tab or clicking somewhere. When I could choose to have an app window always on top… should save extra clicks or keyboardhandling => less RSI risk and more efficiency.
I know exactly what you mean. The annoyance your are describing was one of the first things I noticed but that is probably because I’m such an addict of “sloppy focus” (It is a take on “focus follows mouse” but the focus stays on the last window the mouse was on when it hits the desktop) that I have been using ever since the first time I used fluxbox (second reason I can’t stand to use Macs and Windows the first is copying and pasting with just selecting text and a middle click of the mouse).
The great thing about sloppy focus is leaving the mouse on another window or the desktop and being able to copy stuff to and fro or just having another app on top without having to deal with focus stealing.
I’ve only played around with Haiku a little bit and I couldn’t find anything like it and I think it would be a great feature for it. While I’m at it another feature that would be great to barrow from X is a second clipboard with text that has been selected.
Put these comments into the appropriate RFC comments section, http://www.haiku-os.org/glass_elevator/rfc/ui
It’s weird because I thought that almost all windows will not get raised when clicked inside them, Tracker being an exception.