592285 - Help is on always on top (no menu item/etc. to turn that off)

Status: NEW

(SeaMonkey :: Help Documentation, defect)

Description

[Daniel B.]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.11) Gecko/20100701 SeaMonkey/2.0.6
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.11) Gecko/20100701 SeaMonkey/2.0.6

The SeaMonkey help window is always on top of (in front of) other
SeaMonkey windows, and it has no menu item (or button or whatever)
to alter that behavior.

The Help window should not FORCE itself on the user.  The user should
have the choice the user normally does about raising windows.


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Invoke Help . Help Contents.
2. Try to raise the original window (e.g., on Windows, click on it).

Actual Results:  
The Help window stays on top of the original window, possibly blocking
part of it from view.

Expected Results:  
The original window should successfully raise itself to be above/in
front of the Help window.

Comment 1

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

If you right-click in the help content area, there should be a menuitem that says "Always on top" (or something similar). Unchecking the menuitem should make the "On top" behaviour go away.

Comment 2

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> If you right-click in the help content area, there should be a menuitem that
> says "Always on top" (or something similar). Unchecking the menuitem should
> make the "On top" behaviour go away.

Wow, I didn't know that! You live you learn. Suggesting to resolve WORKSFORME.

Comment 3

[RickieES aka Ricardo Palomares]

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > If you right-click in the help content area, there should be a menuitem that
> > says "Always on top" (or something similar). Unchecking the menuitem should
> > make the "On top" behaviour go away.
> 
> Wow, I didn't know that! You live you learn. Suggesting to resolve WORKSFORME.


Maybe we should add that info in the help_help.xhtml file? BTW, the behaviour reported in the bug (help window always on top) doesn't happen in Linux, nor there is any option in the popup menu to enable/disable it.

Comment 4

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Yeah, this is windows-only. We could also remove it.

Comment 5

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

Well, there are plenty of tools to make windows stay on top if one really wants to have it that way (not out-of-the-box on any Windows, though). So I agree with both of you: Either remove it (also for platform consistency) or document it.

Please note however that the "always on top" functionality (both the default state and the context menu) is in Toolkit, i.e. shared code:
<http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-central/search?string=HELP_ALWAYS_RAISED_TOGGLE>
Also bug 425541 is for removing Help from Toolkit since SeaMonkey is the only user (but there are some requests to keep it for XULRunner) and bug 424130 for moving it to SeaMonkey.

In any case we should do something about it, so confirming.

Comment 6

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Iirc the idea with the "always-on-top" behaviour was that users would be confused if the window disappeared under another window. How does the win (xp/win7) help window behave?

We used to have the same behaviour on mac, but it was removed because there was some issues with it. From what I know, the z-level stuff have never worked on *nix.

Comment 7

[Jens Hatlak (:InvisibleSmiley)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> How does the win (xp/win7) help window behave?

Both: Normal window (not on top, and no such option).

Comment 8

[Daniel B.]

(In reply to comment #1)
> If you right-click in the help content area, there should be a menuitem that
> says "Always on top" (or something similar). Unchecking the menuitem should
> make the "On top" behaviour go away.

If that's the case (I can't check my 2.0.6/Windows SeaMonkey right now), then 
the actual problem is a UI-design problem.  

I looked in the normal place for settings--a menubar at the top of the window 
(or a button in the toolbar for changing settings/preferences), but there was 
none.

So, my report now is that the help window doesn't have a readily apparent 
menubar like other windows (or settings/preferences button) to get to that
window's settings.

Should we submit that as a new, separate but report and close this one, or just 
keep using this one?

Daniel

Comment 9

[Daniel B.]

(In reply to comment #8)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > If you right-click in the help content area, there should be a menuitem that
> > says "Always on top" (or something similar). Unchecking the menuitem should
> > make the "On top" behaviour go away.
> 
> If that's the case (I can't check my 2.0.6/Windows SeaMonkey right now), ...

(Okay; I've checked; there is that content menu.)

Comment 10

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

I would suggest that we remove this "feature". Note that this is not seamonkey-specific code, but we can file a bug in toolkit and try to remove it - I doubt that anyone will have any objections.

Comment 11

[Stefan [:stefanh]]

Ian, any suggestions here?