Drag and drop from nemo / caja to window in window group on taskbar is broken

[syntaxler]

 * Bug persists in both current stable mint 21.1 production version of Cinnamon and nemo or caja and Cinnamon version 5.6.7 and nemo 5.6.3 (while using mint daily builds ppa of now which I am running this moment). 
 * > inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 driver: i915 v: kernel
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 resolution: 2560x1440
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2)
    v: 4.6 Mesa 22.2.5
 * 64 bit
 * ~/.xsession-errors, or /var/log/syslog show nothing of interest in regards to this behavior as far as I can see

Related / overlapping to #11139

Issue

Drag-and-drop a file from a nemo or caja window to a window in a window-group
(such as two firefox instances) does not work, more specifically the window over whiches window-preview is hovered
does not come to foreground so one could drop the file into it.

Steps to reproduce

• install Linux Mint 21.1 x86_64
• open two firefox instances (or, probably, any other program that can have multiple windows under one icon in the taskbar)
• open a nemo or caja window
• drag a file from the nemo or caja window over the firefox taskbar icon (the window preview showing the two ff windows appears)
• the window does not come to foreground, so dropping is not possible / does not cause ff to accept the file

Expected behaviour

• hover over taskbar icon (previews appear)
• hover over one preview
• corresponding ff window comes to foreground and accepts dropped file

Other information

• This bug breaks a very central feature of a desktop OS
• It used to work perfectly under mint 20.x.
• Bug is kind of indeterministic, because sometimes I cannot reproduce it with caja and dragging and dropping between several caja windows does work.

[somyk33]

It seems to me, that I have the same issue, but with dragging and dropping any downloaded file in the Google Chrome browser to any program in the taskbar.
I'm sorry if I'm wrong. I'm a newbie in Linux.

[julgranen]

Hi,

I can reproduce this with files dragged from nemo to any programme in the taskbar, e. g. evolution. As this seems to be quite a basic functionality of a DE I hope it can be fixed soon.

[VKen]

Hi, I upgraded from linuxmint Una to Vanessa last week, and experienced this regression issue as well.

Click-and-drag an image file from within nemo window, drag file to bottom panel (taskbar) to hover on another open window (group) e.g. firefox for gdrive upload, the second window does not come into focus like previous behavior in una.

Click-and-drag directly from side by side from one to another open windows works.

This is hard as i sometimes work with more than five windows open e.g. nemo, firefox, chromium, gimp, inkscape, evince/xreader, etc. And it's a constant little annoyance in user experience that i have to specifically search and get both nemo and target window open side-by-side before commencing direct click-drag-and-drop to target window without able to use the previous behavior through bottom panel of open windows to focus.

Other than this issue, most other things works very smoothly and I'm satisfied so far.

Hope this issue can be looked into and be fixed soon. Thank you very much.

[kavalanche]

I can confirm that this issue is still perssitent in 2024 on Linux Mint 21.3, Cinnamon 6.0.4.
It never worked on any of my installations, but I have sucessfully used in on my friends' computers with Linux Mint and Cinnamon. It's baffling.

Expected behavior :

You have Nemo open full-screen. You have another window open full-screen (Imageviewer, MKVToolnix, or a browser, etc). You want to drag a file from the Nemo window (the source window), through the Panel, to the other window (the destination window) and drop it there. The file will then be opened by the application in the destination window.

So you click on the file name, drag it from the source window (Nemo) to the Panel, then when you drag the file over the icon of the destination window, the destination window should come to the front, and then you can drop the file into the destination window, and it opens in the application.

The Problem :

When you drag the file to the Panel, and drag it over the icon of the destination window, the destination window does not come to the front.

"The Problem" occurs only for certain user configurations.

What's involved? Panel visibility settings, and the Cinnamon applets "Grouped window list" and "Window list".

In System Settings > Panel > Panel visibility, there are three options available to the user :

Auto hide panel
Always show panel
Intelligently hide panel

So users may have these six different configurations :

• Grouped window list and auto-hide panel.
• Grouped window list and always show panel.
• Grouped window list and intelligently hide panel.
• Window list and auto-hide panel.
• Window list and always show panel.
• Window list and intelligently hide panel.

The Problem occurs with these user configurations :

• Grouped window list and auto-hide panel.
• Grouped window list and intelligently hide panel.
• Window list and auto-hide panel.
• Window list and intelligently hide panel.

The Problem does not occur with this user configuration :

• Window list and always show panel.

The drag-drop functionality works imperfectly with this user configuration :

• Grouped window list and always show panel.
  With this user configuration, you can drag-drop files from Nemo to an application in the destination window. But if you have two separate Nemo windows open fullscreen, and you want to drag a file from one Nemo window to the other, it doesn't work. When you drag the file to the Folder icon in Grouped window list, two thumbnails appear for the two Nemo windows, and when you drag the file over the thumbnail of the destination Nemo window, the destination Nemo window does not come to the front.

One wrinkle : with the user configurations I listed above where the Problem occurs, the drag-drop functionality may actually work correctly once, and then it never does again.

I'm pretty sure the Problem is in Cinnamon.

In early 2023, I did a test installation of LMDE 5. At that time, LMDE 5 had Cinnamon 5.2.7. The Problem did not occur. I let Update Manager update everything, and then the Problem did occur. Cinnamon was now 5.6.7.

I re-installed LMDE 5, and with this fresh installation, I noted that Update Manager listed several Cinnamon-related updates. I unchecked all of those, and let Update Manager update everything else. The Problem did not occur. I then went back to Update Manager, and let it update all of those Cinnamon-related updates. Cinnamon was now 5.6.7, and the Problem then occurred.

I re-installed LMDE 5 again. In Update Manager, I unchecked everything except the Cinnamon-related updates. After updating, Cinnamon was now 5.6.7, and the Problem then occurred.

So I'm pretty sure the Problem is in Cinnamon.

In Mint Cinnamon edition, the Problem appeared between Mint 20.3 with Cinnamon 5.2.7 and Mint 21 with Cinnamon 5.4.8.

In LMDE 5, the Problem appeared between LMDE 5 with Cinnamon 5.2.7 and LMDE 5 with Cinnamon 5.6.7.

It would be a good thing if this bug were fixed, because this drag-and-drop functionality has been a standard thing since a long time, and right now there may be more Windows refugees checking out Mint because of the "End of 10" and Windows refugees may decide Mint isn't that good if it can't do this basic drag-and-drop thing.