Bug#700475: [neverball] Primary click does not immediately start level with a left-handed mouse

[Filipus Klutiero]

On 2013-05-23 13:32, Markus Koschany wrote:
> Hello and thanks for your bug report.
>
> After reading the bug report twice, i'm not sure whether you have
> reported a bug at all.
>
> The fastest way to retry a level is to click the left mouse button and
> in my opinion it does not really matter if you are a left- or
> right-hander. It happens reasonably fast. That is the way how upstream
> has implemented this feature and i think it is working fine.
>
> In my opinion it is very unlikely that this behaviour will change in the
> future thus it would make sense to tag this bug as "wontfix" or close
> the bug report.
>
> Alternatively you could try to convince upstream to code an additional
> option which would allow you to switch the mouse button behaviour. Again
> the forum is the best place to do that:
>
> http://forum.nevercorner.net/

Thanks for your attention to this report. I'm afraid though that we don't understand. This issue may look trivial, but it is actually fairly complicated. The problem is not specific to retrying a level, but let us focus on that use case to avoid complication. After failing a level, Neverball requires more than one click to retry. By design, the first click only triggers a presentation of the level. A second click is needed to actually start playing.

The previous scenario is how Neverball was designed to work. In practice though, due to an SDL bug (611514), a third click is needed (before the 2 previously discussed clicks) to give focus to Neverball's window. Therefore, by default, a user needs to hover "Retry Level" and left-click 3 times.

If a user is right-handed, then naturally retrying instead requires 3 right clicks. So far so good. However, if one simply clicks 3 times, Neverball takes about 2 seconds more to really start the level. Veteran players skip that by clicking a fourth time, again with the primary click. But, for right-handed players, this fourth click cannot be done with the primary button. It has to be a left click, even if the computer is configured for a left-handed user. Therefore, a right-handed player cannot simply do 4 clicks with the same button. He has to click right 3 times then left once.

There is no additional option needed. Neverball handles handedness fine *except* in this case. I would guess the fix is a one-liner.
>
> But honestly i believe this issue is too minor, respectively not an
> issue at all, to forward it upstream. If you intend to do so, please add
> a link to this bug report, otherwise i'm in favour of closing the bug
> report or tagging it as "wontfix".

The main reason I didn't report this upstream is that I simply couldn't manage to open a ticket there (I can't see how to create a Trac account), so no, I don't intend to forward the report upstream at least until this changes.