Re: Raise-on-Focus
Re: Raise-on-Focus
- Subject: Re: Raise-on-Focus
- From: "Joseph R. Kiniry" <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 18:08:51 +0100
Hello John,
--On zaterdag, 1 februari 2003 11:49 -0500 "John J. Francini"
<email@hidden> wrote:
I support this position. Apple's insistence on making only the
topmost window liable for input is a supreme irritation for me.
More often than not, I am unable to find a window set configuration
that will actually let me see data I need *and* input information in
another window because of this policy. This is why I am not using
quartz-wm, but unfortunately, given there is no interleaving of X
and Quartz windows, I'm still far from a comfortable environment.
I've tried X window managers where focus and window-raising were not
connected -- the one I remember best would give focus to whatever window
the mouse cursor was in. I found that one to be very irritating to use,
for a very simple reason: under X, the cursor doesn't disappear when you
start typing in a window -- as opposed to MacOS (both OSX and prior).
Inevitably, the cursor would be right in the middle of where I was
typing. First gut reaction: throw the cursor out of the window. Of
course, this causes whatever window that the cursor lands in to get focus.
The solution to this standard complaint (and I'm not immune) is threefold:
(1) "sloppy" focus (if you exit a window with the mouse pointer to a
non-window region the focus stays with the last focused window), (2)
pointer hiding (the pointer disappears or ghosts whenever you are using the
keyboard), and (3) mouse avoidance mode (the pointer moves out of your line
of sight automatically as you work, but never causes focus to change).
Many (most?) window managers have the first two options available. The
second is a behavior present in recent Emacsen; see move-avoidance-mode for
options.
For me, the answer to the need to have windows with needed info alongside
windows where I'm inputting that info (or a permutation thereof) is very
simple: screen real-estate. Lots of it. Since the Mac supports multiple
monitors, I have two 1152x960 monitors side-by-side and can spread out
across both monitors as I need. As these CRT-based monitors are getting
older, I'm seriously considering either a pair of the new 17" LCDs or one
of the 23" super-wide ones.
But isn't this just an expanded (and expensive) solution to simply
permitting input in a non-top window? With sufficient multitasking (my
standard mode of work) I run out of screen real estate even with two 23"
monitors on my old work desk. I guess for me, display size is like disk
space or CPU cycles---no matter how much you have, you always seem to
figure out a way to use it all.
Best,
Joe
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