A question for you guys:

Nexus features an uninstall survey, and a common complaint seems to be Nexus popping up unexpectadly because the user accidentaly bumped the top screen edge with the mouse pointer while working on something else.

Now, Nexus has several mechanisms to deal with this, from increasing the Edge Bump delay in the General tab of Preferences (which makes Nexus take longer to react to a edge bump and thus minimizes accidental screen edge bumps) to flat out disabling edge bump activation in the Position & Behavior tab of Nexus Preferences.

Unfortunately it is also a fact (and a source of grief to countless developers) that very few users read the included documentation. Some don't even bother scanning the list of available settings to see if one solves their problem.

This is why good defaults are so important.

Now, edge activation is critical for auto-hiding docks (how else would you get the dock back?) but Nexus, by default, also responds to an edge bump even when it's not hidden (in which case the edge bump makes the dock come forward).

This, in my opinion, is useful because it allows the user to get to the dock even when it lies behind a maximized window. However, it also seems to be the source of some frustration.

My question is: should the default be changed so that Nexus only responds to edge bumps when it's hidden above the screen edge?

That could be a solution, since the talk here is about defaults, not any new functionality. It just occurs to me that people may expect an edge-bump to work only in conjunction with autohide; otherwise, they may see it as a bug, thinking like "I didn't set it to autohide... why the hell is it popping up?"
I know what you mean about people not reading documentation, though... usually, I'm one of them... and I get frustrated if software doesn't work logically and consistently. So, in the end, it's all about logic and consistency in the options. Oh, and it's better not to have a setting at all, rather than have one which doesn't work...

You didn't vote.

Anyway, there is a third option, but it's a bit more complicated to implement properly: the dock can come to the foreground even when not hidden, but automatically hides again (giving focus to the window that previously had the focus) as soons as the user mouses away from it.

I didn't vote because my vote is conditional.
Like so:

Simple...

But that goes without saying. The Edge bump is always active if the dock is hidden (otherwise, as I said, there is no way to get it back).

We're only talking about edge bumps working (or not) when the dock is visible.

Ok, I changed the default to NOT react to edge bumps UNLESS the dock is hidden.

Sorry for not waiting for more votes, but this release is late as hell already (but others feel free to keep on voting, the default can always be changed again for a future version).

Let's just hope I don't now start getting complaints about people not being able to access their docks when a window is maximized.

Sigh. Sometimes I think you just can't win, lol

I vote NO

As I do not like using edge bump.

My question is: should the default be changed so that Nexus only responds to edge bumps when it's hidden above the screen edge?

No, I often want to open another program over the currently running application and Nexus is ideal for that. I do not hide Nexus above the screen edge.
I have the edge bump delay set to 25% and it works well.
I vote for the 3rd option even though I am a bit late.

Unfortunately there is no time to add the 3rd option for this release (not as simple to implement as it sounds).

Remember, the user can always enable or disable edge bump activation in Preferences. We're just talking about which default is best to minimize complaints/confusion.

Thanks Jorge.
But please if it ain't possible then offer or suggest option 3.
Enable edge bump activation by default but with say 50% delay.
This should stop false triggering by a brief edge bump.

Then I'll have users who can't figure out how to get back their hidden docks. Even with the current delay, some already do.

One can't win, I say again.

As for the third method, I'll probably implement it in the next release, in which case I'll turn the edge bump default back to on.

'Tis a real problem.
Can you detect when the desktop is not populated with a running application?
If so have 2 delay timers.
One quick one when the desktop is unused and the user wants to access the dock
and a little longer delay so when the user has an open application an incidental tap on the edge will not activate the dock.
Just a thought but not wishing to complicate the settings.

Thanks for the tip. I like the bump activation but I needed to lengthen the duration before it pops up.

I use Terminal Services and the application that I am using within that window forces me to the top left edge and because of the default (middle) activation speed it was annoying. Lengthening the activation time has alleviated that little annoyance.

I like the bump reaction time to be fast and immediate and set it so all I have to do is click anywhere and it will hide just as quickly as it came. I don't like the Shelf, Dock or Modules showing at all (for example, when by default the Shelf takes up part of the screen) while I have a browser or folder open. So, I changed the settings.

A great feature that really comes in handy is to set the Shelf Tabs setting to Centered. This way, if you accidentally bump, there is a lot of extra space to click on above (in my case since the Shelf is at the top) the activated Shelf items to re-hide them without fear of accidentally clicking on something.

This is a screenshot of the upper portion of my Desktop to show the Centered option.

Hi Jorge,

Here's my experience:

I'm using Xtreme with the shelf at the bottom, a dock at the top and Nextstart taking care of the start menu.

At this point, even though I've got some more tweaking to do (I don't use the shelf as much as I expected, but that will change soon) I really can't see using Win 7 without Xtreme (so pat yourself on the back Jorge - awesome job).

Anyway, for one reason or another, when I had everything hidden, I seemed to have a devil of a time getting edge bumps (or in some cases even hotkeys) to actually bring things back up. Obviously I spent too much time playing with settings and not backing things up So they took up permanent residence on the screen. And the ability to bring any hidden docks up to the foreground so I can use them over other maximized windows is a major win.

Now I read the docs, used the forums, and experimented to get what I wanted.

But maybe, rather than agonize over the exact blend of settings to use as defaults, write 2 new programs.

1) An expert system (if you will) to make the initial settings for all the systems in Xtreme. Sort of like a custom "ini" file that all the programs will pull the initial settings data from (so it would obviously have to be stored in a common location). The the program would ask some basic usability questions of the new user and make the settings based upon their answers. Having written something like this it can be a real pain in the rear to put together (more labor/usability thinking than technical though).

One way to make it easier would be to have the new "settings.ini" be something that each program checks only upon start up. If the file date (and/or section date to stay with the old ini file terminology) of the ini file is newer than an internal setting for each program (reset whenever someone changes something within the current system - so this would add one more variable to track internally) then the program copies the settings over.

2) A "unified" backup program which will back up all the settings of all the programs.

Even if these programs only run when the Winstep applications aren't running, that's OK too. The nice thing about this route is either of these programs might then just run the other winstep applications using a command line switch so they run in "console mode" ust running their own internal backup & restore routines.

Just an idea.