> I wanted to be able to type into the partly covered window
> [...]
> It would have been intolerable to always have to bring the
> text window to the top in order to provide text input. So
> in that context, the mouse was used to interact with the
> program being tested and demonstrated and also used to
> change input focus between the test/demo window and the
> partly covered text window.
That's mostly my style of working. And if you have a
trackpoint on your keyboard, you don't even have to
move your hand to move the pointer.
> In most other contexts, e.g. editing latex source in a text
> window and every now and again viewing the formatted PDF file
> generated from the text, I don't need to use the mouse and
> can use keyboard to write the file and generate pdf, and if
> needed, to raise and lower the editor window.
Indeed. But zooming in to a particular region to check some
detail in the PDF is *much* simpler using the mouse and the
"marquee zoom" feature of acroread or gv.
> I also don't know any way to use keyboard to select and paste
> text between applications, e.g. from a text file in the editor
> to a web browser window, or vice versa.
I've configured both xterm and vim to use shift-insert
to paste text from the X11 selection. In vim you can use
registers "*" and "+" to copy text to/from the X11 selection
and clipboard. For firefox, pentadactyl/vimperator provide
lots of useful keyboard commands (e.g., select an URL in
a text window, got to firefox and press "P", which makes
firefox open that URL in a new tab; you can select text
from a web page using "caret mode").
