Focus Follows Mouse In Aqua (No, I don't mean X11)

Hello mass of Apple users!
I have been switching back in forth between my Windows XP install and OS 10.4.11 and realized how much I miss focus follows mouse.
Does any one know how to enable it? From what I've found it doesn't seem
to be possible, except with the Terminal application, which can be enabled with by using defaults.

MondoMouse - VersionTracker or MacUpdate.

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Ugh! Please restore old Terminal.app focus-follows-mouse behavior!

The 10.4 and prior Terminal.app's focus-follows-mouse feature allowed one to type into the terminal by mousing over it even if the Terminal wasn't the currently focussed application. It didn't focus Terminal when you did this, but did direct keyboard input to it.
10.5's Terminal.app only allows focus follows mouse to work when it's the focussed application, which destroys about 80% of this feature's usability for me. I like to keep things like finder and browser windows overlapping most of a terminal window and then just slide the mouse over to the terminal to type there, and I can no longer do that in 10.5. Now I have to click on the Terminal window, bringing all my terminal windows forward and obscuring the windows I wanted on top. Very annoying.
Is there any way to restore the old behaviour? If not, can we please have it back?
Luckily, 10.4's Terminal.app still behaves properly in 10.5, so I'm using it, but I'd like to have some of the new features of 10.5's Terminal.app. Unfortunately, "broken" focus-follows-mouse is a deal-breaker for me.

The command I know,
defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string Yes
seems to work about the same in Leopard as in Tiger for me. I don't remember ever being able to get focus-follows-mouse behaviour to work in a non-active application from an active non-focus-follows-mouse application. In other words one can focus follows mouse from one Terminal to another, but not from Finder to Terminal.
The X11 equivalent (why the inconsistent key and value?) is
defaults write com.apple.X11 wm_ffm -bool true
I remember being able to focus-follows-mouse between Terminal and X11, but cannot in Leopard. However, I also cannot in Tiger 10.4.11 either, so maybe it is my memory that is faulty.
What I don't seem to be able to do, but could do in Tiger, is
defaults write com.apple.X11 swapaltmeta -int 1
On Tiger, that would make the option key the meta key, so that e.g. alt-d would delete forward one word, etc. On Leopard, this seems to be a NOP which means that cmd is the only possible meta key, which I personally find rather confusing.

Xmonad and focus follows mouse issue

I've been fiddling around with xmonad, and I notice that with focus follows mouse turned on, when I create a new window the window under the mouse gets selected instead of the window that I have just created. Pretty irritating, Anyone know how to solve that?
Thanks for any help provided,
Kruppe

Yes, disabling the focus follows mouse behaviour makes it so the correct window is always chosen.
I kind of like having focus follows mouse for when I need to copy and paste in applications that don't provide good methods for doing that purely with the keyboard (firefox and most terminals when not using screen). I would therefore like to have focus follows mouse.
Sidenote: What is this updatePointer thing you use and what does it do?

Focus follows mouse

Hi,
Is there a way to keep a window open while another window is selected? What I would like to is manually type in a window while another window is visible. Other than clicking on alternate windows or resizing the windows I know of no way to do this.
It seems to me that I had a utility that had focus follows mouse as one of the options. This stopped working a couple of releases ago and I have forgotten its name.
Thanks.

I can't appreciate the small space since I don't have a laptop, but you should be able to squeeze in two, either side by side or one on top of the other. Increase the display resolution, maybe? Other than that, I feel thy pain.

Focus follows mouse, etc

So many years ago I was a mac user. And many years ago this forum looked different...
But I have since switched to linux. Which I like because I can program it however I want.
BUT now I have a mac again. My macbook with intel ran linux, but it died. So now I have a powerbook. Since PPC linux ***** I'm running 10.5 on it.
I actually really like this system. It's pretty straight forward and easy to use, just a few things I want for it that I can't find.
One big major thing that's really holding me back with the system is there's no focus follows mouse. Especially with the small screen it's something I really need to use the computer. And no auto-raise please. That completely ruins the point of focus follows mouse.
I do have it working in terminal via playing with some plist files. And that's mostly where I use it. But I use it enough on the rest of the system that it's something I really want.
Also, I'd really like to be able to hold down a modifier key, and click anywhere in a window to be able to move it. Something else I've become really accgstomed to in my GUI that I'd like to have on this little machine.
Thanks for any help.

Cool! Thanks for Window Wrangler! That's a pretty neat program. Not what I was looking for exactly, but it'll do just fine.
I now see what you were trying to show me with the zoom. That's not what I'm looking for.
What I'm looking for is focus follows mouse. What it does is as you put a mouse over a window, that window gets focus. But does not raise to the top.
So say I have a web browser open, and my IM client open. I'll leave the client at the bottom of the screen and have the browser sized up just enough to see the text field and the first two lines of conversation of the chat.
Now, on my linux system to reply all I have to do is put the curser over the IM window and I can type into it without having to click on it and bring it to the top.
For that example, it isn't a huge deal. But when you have 5 or 6 windows open all organized with each on the right level, bringing one to the top will screw it up.
I'm liable to have a few terminal windows, IM, email, IM, some programming ide, etc open at once. It's especially useful for web development. I can have the source file open and edit it, but not bring it over the browser window so I can have an idea of what I'm doing with the source.

Disable window focus follows mouse without click

I've noticed that I can scroll a window without clicking on it by moving the mouse cursor over that window. For example, this Safari window has focus, and I'm typing in it, but if I move the cursor to another application (Terminal or another application), I can scroll that other window without having to click on it. This gets me into trouble, because I can scroll around the other window then start typing, thinking that I'm in that other window because I'm actively doing something to it (scrolling), but the text goes to the window which really has the focus. For example, Mail has focus, then I scroll around a Terminal looking for something, and I type the delete key forgetting that I'm in Mail. This has an advantage in that one can scroll a window that is not on top, but there are drawbacks.
Is there a way to require the click in a window in order to scroll in that window?
Thanks,
==Leonard

Cool! Thanks for Window Wrangler! That's a pretty neat program. Not what I was looking for exactly, but it'll do just fine.
I now see what you were trying to show me with the zoom. That's not what I'm looking for.
What I'm looking for is focus follows mouse. What it does is as you put a mouse over a window, that window gets focus. But does not raise to the top.
So say I have a web browser open, and my IM client open. I'll leave the client at the bottom of the screen and have the browser sized up just enough to see the text field and the first two lines of conversation of the chat.
Now, on my linux system to reply all I have to do is put the curser over the IM window and I can type into it without having to click on it and bring it to the top.
For that example, it isn't a huge deal. But when you have 5 or 6 windows open all organized with each on the right level, bringing one to the top will screw it up.
I'm liable to have a few terminal windows, IM, email, IM, some programming ide, etc open at once. It's especially useful for web development. I can have the source file open and edit it, but not bring it over the browser window so I can have an idea of what I'm doing with the source.

I used to open many tabs in the same page and i move from one to other by mouse but since3 two days the tabs open in the same page normaly but i can't move from one to other when i clik with mouse on any tab it don't open/ do u have any solve for this?

i used to open many tabs in the same page and i move from one to other by mouse but since3 two days the tabs open in the same page normaly but i can't move from one to other when i clik with mouse on any tab it don't open/ do u have any solve for this

Start Firefox in <u>[[Safe Mode|Safe Mode]]</u> to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).
*Do not click the Reset button on the Safe mode start window or otherwise make changes.
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
*https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

IPhoto text field input focus requires mouse hover

This is driving me crazy. To add text to a photo title or description, the mouse must not just click in the text box -- it must stay there! If the mouse drifts away after the click or you bump the mouse while typing, text input stops. This is seems peculiar and turns out to be quite frustrating. This reminds me of the old days when there was a debate over window focus and mouse movement.
Once you click into a text field, that field should stay active until you do something intentional to leave it (tab, enter, click, etc.).

I'm having the same problem as you with dealing with text. After some hours of trying all kinds of clicking around and holding down extra keys (the arrow keys help a bit), I'm getting nowhere. I was automatically upgraded to 9.1.1 when I got my new MacBookPro. I was previously on an older version of iPhoto. The description pane in the older version was bigger and much simpler to use (there is spare space on the iPhoto 9.1.1 screen layout, so why did Apple make its description panel so small?). Version 9.1.1 has more editing options, but I haven't yet found a way of using most of them because as you say, it's so difficult to keep selected text active for editing.
I have also tried drafting my descriptions inside Word first and then pasting them into iPhoto. They paste OK but the pasted text is black (as in Word) - but against the near-black of the iPhoto description pane, it's almost invisible! I thought I could then change the pasted text colour in iPhoto to white (on black) by using 'colours' from inside the description-editing options of iPhoto, but for the above reasons, I can't find any way of doing that.
There seems to be no direct help for these problems in iPhoto Help. Has anyone out there worked out what the select-and-edit routines should be? If not, I just hope Apple will solve these things in the next upgrade, or at the very least give us a bigger text pane.
Message was edited by: digidaze

Magic mouse, keyboard and track pad don´t work from sleep!

After coming back from sleep, the magic mouse, keyboard and track pad don´t work. I´ve tried everything and when this happens I have to restart may Imac. Help!!!

Hello jhspies,
After reviewing your post, it sounds like after you updated there are a few things having trouble. I would recommend that you read these articles, they may be helpful in troubleshooting your issue.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC) - Apple Support
OS X Yosemite: If keys on your keyboard don’t work
Intel-based Mac notebooks: Troubleshooting unresponsive trackpad issues - Apple Support
USB and FireWire Quick Assist - Apple Support
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Have a nice day,
Mario

How do i stop muting people during my conversations? i don't mean to hit mute but it always happens. can i turn down the sensitivity?

how do i stop muting people during my conversations? i don't mean to hit mute but it always happens. can i turn down the sensitivity?

The iPhone includes a proximity sensor which puts the screen to sleep or turns it off when the iPhone is held to your ear and face during a call.
Do you have a screen protector installed and/or are you using a case that might be blocking or partially blocking the proximity sensor?
If you are using a case, remove the case before the next call. If the same does not occur without the case, you need to get another case that doesn't block the proximity sensor.

After downloading the updates for Premier Elements 12 I got the following error message U44M1P7. What does this mean and how can I correct it. Thanks.

After downloading the updates for Premier Elements 12 I got the following error message U44M1P7. What does this mean and how can I correct it. Thanks.

glennpsychdoc
What computer operating system is your Premiere Elements 12 running on? I suspect Mac because of the name your error.
Please read the following Adobe document with the details and fix for error U44M1P7
ATR Premiere Elements Troubleshooting: PE12: 12.1 Update Released
Specifically open the following link in the above
Update 12.1 installation errors | Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements
Please let us know if that works for you.
Thank you.
ATR

"Error code 0xc000035a Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however this cpu is not compatible with 64-bit mode" when I load Windows 7 [64bit] on an older iMac(with Parallels 6)? Any solutions that don't mean buying a new iMac?

"Error code 0xc000035a Attempting to load a 64-bit application, however this cpu is not compatible with 64-bit mode"
when I load Windows 7 [64bit] on an older iMac(with Parallels 6)? Any solutions that don't mean buying a new iMac?

You should probably post your question on the Parallels forums: http://forums.parallels.com

Is there any way to lock an IPAD app? by lock, I don't mean password protect. My toddler is constantly scrolling out of her apps and this causes frustration as she spends all her time bringing the IPAD back to me to get back in to the app she was playing

is there any way to lock an IPAD app? by lock, I don't mean password protect. My toddler is constantly scrolling out of her apps and this causes frustration as she spends all her time bringing the IPAD back to me to get back in to the app she was playing. I need a SCROLL lock!!

This may help: iOS: Understanding multitasking.
If you turn OFF multi-taskng, your toddler won't be able to "swipe" between Apps.
I don't know of any way to disable the "Home" button though.

[solved] DWM: Focus and mouse pointer?

Hello, I just went from openbox to dwm.
I really enjoy this so far, but there are two things that I don't like.
Lets say I have two views (1 & 2) with this kind of window layout:
| | B |
| A |_______|
| | |
| | C |
|_______|_______|
Steps:
1. I'm in view 1 and my mouse is over A and it's focused
2. I switch to view 2 (MODKEY+2) and move mouse pointer over B
3. I switch back to view 1 (MODKEY+1) - The focus is still on A, even though my mouse pointer is over B
Is this normal? I would like to set it so that focus always follows my mouse pointer,
I would also like it so that when I move focus with MODKEY+j/k it would move my mouse pointer over that window.
Is there an option or a patch to do this?
I'm using dwm-6.0.
Last edited by z7 (2012-12-26 21:37:06)

Unia wrote:
There's one here, but it might require some modifications as it's made for 5.9:
I don't know about the other, sorry.
Thanks! This "wrap" patch actually showed me that my first problem wasn't really a problem for me.
Now the pointer moves always over the last focused window when I switch back to a view.
And yes it applied fine to dwm 6.0.
edit. But it kind of ruins switching views from statusbar with mouse, since the pointer always hops to the center of focused window. But I think I can live with it.
Last edited by z7 (2012-12-26 21:41:42)

Custom cursor that follows mouse - JITTERS

Hi again.
I'm using this code to make my custom cursor follow the mouse, HOWEVER when it gets near to the mouth it goes loopy - and turns left and right in a fit. Can I put code in there for it to be smoother?
The CODE is lower done highlighted in BLACK.
Cheers
// Remeber to add private to vars and public to functions that are used outside.
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.media.Sound;
import flash.events.Event;
import flash.ui.Mouse;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import fl.transitions.Tween;
import fl.transitions.TweenEvent;
import fl.transitions.easing.*;
var v:Number=5;
var varObject:String;
var i:Number;
var arrayObjects:Array;
var soundClip:Sound;
var randomnumber:Number;
//public function game1SunnyWalk() {
stage.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_MOVE, myClickReaction);
stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,enterFrameHandler);
addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnterFrame);
// populate array and initiate variables i and varObject
this.arrayObjects=["chocolate","icecream","pizza","hamburger","sandwich","egg"];
this.i=1;
this.varObject=arrayObjects[i-1];
var clickPoint:Point = new Point();
function myClickReaction(e:MouseEvent):void {
clickPoint.x=this.mouseX;
clickPoint.y=this.mouseY;
function onEnterFrame(event:Event):void {
var xDistance:Number=clickPoint.x-this.planeAndSunny.x;
var yDistance:Number=clickPoint.y-this.planeAndSunny.y;
var angle:Number=Math.atan2(yDistance,xDistance);
this[varObject].y += 5;
//trace(this[varObject].y);
this.planeAndSunny.x+=v*Math.cos(angle);
this.planeAndSunny.y+=v*Math.sin(angle);
if (clickPoint.x>=planeAndSunny.x) {
this.planeAndSunny.gotoAndPlay("right");
//trace(Math.abs(xDistance));
if (this.planeAndSunny.x>=clickPoint.x) {
this.planeAndSunny.gotoAndPlay("left");
//trace(Math.abs(xDistance));
//if (Math.abs(xDistance)<=10) {
//trace("works");
//this.planeAndSunny.gotoAndPlay("static");
//removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, onEnterFrame);
function enterFrameHandler(e:Event):void {
varObject=arrayObjects[i-1];
// this property refers to the mc being referenced and as it's an array you also need the square brackets
// I tried to hitTest only the STRING whereas you need to hitTest the object
// ie: this refers to the array object and NOT the string.
if (this.planeAndSunny.hitTestObject(this[varObject])) {
//starts sound
//init();
// spins the object
spin();
trace(varObject);// BUT you can trace the STRING ie: No need to use OBJECT(STRING) - which would be the actual mc.
removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, enterFrameHandler);// ie: You can't do a hitTest on a string BUT on an object. (The array)
//var soundClip:Sound;
//function init() {
//soundClip = new Sound();
//soundClip.load(new URLRequest("sound/chocolate.mp3"));
//soundClip.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, soundLoaded);
//soundClip.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, soundLoading);
//function soundLoaded(e:Event) {
//soundClip.play();
function spin() {
//tw.addEventListener(TweenEvent.MOTION_FINISH, spinStopped);// note than when you use addEventListener - the function called uses that event as an argument in brackets after the function name
var tw:Tween=new Tween(this[varObject],"rotation",Strong.easeOut,0,360,2,true);
var numturns:int=8;
this[varObject].removeEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, spin);
tw.begin=this[varObject].rotation;
tw.finish=numturns*360;
tw.start();
i=i+1;

you can easily attach the cursor between the specific layers you want using an empty movieclip and add your cursor movieclip to the emptyMC using the class name. Look at the screenshot and follow the code. it works
and here is the code:
import flash.display.MovieClip;
var whytehand:MovieClip=new cur();
emptyMC.addChild(whytehand);
emptyMC.mouseEnabled = false;
emptyMC.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, fl_CustomMouseCursor_5);
function fl_CustomMouseCursor_5(event:Event)
emptyMC.x = stage.mouseX;
emptyMC.y = stage.mouseY;
Mouse.hide();
Thatz it!

Focus Follows Mouse In Aqua (No, I don't mean X11)

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