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.

Similar Messages

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, 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.

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.

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.

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

[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)

Focus on mouse pointer on click- WPF

hi,
I want to focus the position of the mouse pointer when the user clicks.
Exactly like the focus we get on clicking the ctrl key to locate mouse pointer after enabling it here.
Can anyone help me with this.
Thanks,
Shaleen
TheHexLord

Hi TheShaleen,
>>I want to focus the position of the mouse pointer when the user clicks
It's hard to accomplish your requirement, I've tried to find API to enable this setting, but as far as I know, there is no official API to enable this programmatically.
If you just want to make this work on some control, like Canvas, you could get the coordinate of Mouse Pointer and draw shap on this Canvas, please refer to this article:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms747393(v=vs.110).aspx
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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!

Tight Deadline: How to make image to follow mouse only side to side

I am on a tight deadline and looking for the AS3 code of how to do what this company does on their site:
http://www.imageworksstudio.com/ However, I don't know AS3. Literally my project requires I recreate the what is shown with the hand holding the sharpie and moving only back and forth restricted to a centered rectangular area at the bottom of the screen. I know how to import the image that follows the mouse to the stage, and to make it a movieclip. Let's say I have named the instance "Image_mc". Does anyone have the actionscript for how to do this? Do you attach it to the object or to a keyframe on a separate actions layer? I appreciate any help! Thanks!

The replacement for those two lines of code in AS3 would be:
box_mc.x = mouseX+(box_mc.x-mouseX)/2

Rotating object to follow mouse

Okay, say I have an object (a bee in this case) that I want
to follow the
mouse around, that part's easy:
property my,oldLoc
on beginSprite me
my = sprite(me.spriteNum)
oldLoc = my.loc
end
on exitFrame me
my.loc = the mouseLoc
if diff(my.locV,oldLoc.locV) + diff(my.locH,oldLoc.locH)
> 5 then
my.member = "BeeBuzz"
else my.member = "BeeStill"
oldLoc = my.loc
end
It even includes a cute little function to make the wings
buzz when it's
moving, and not when it's standing still. The tricky part is
I want to have
some way of making the bee rotate to move in the direction
the mouse moves.
This seems to *almost* work, except that when the locV
doesn't change, it
results in a divide-by-zero error:
my.rotation = atan((oldLoc.locH - my.locH) / (oldLoc.locV -
my.locV)) *
57.2958
I could check and artificially add a small amount to avoid
the
divide-by-zero, but that seems like a hash. Is there a better
way to do
this correctly?
(And does anybody mind if I rant a bit about how all rotation
properties in
the program operate in degrees, while all the trig functions
operate in
radians? And the program doesn't include a method to convert
between them
either. That's just annoying.)

Thanks. I generally try to avoid the Library behaviors
because I've found
that they mostly seem to be 98% unnecessary error-checking
and 2% functional
code, and it can often be very difficult to find and extract
that tiny
little bit of code that actually DOES anything. However, in
this case I was
able to pull a bit of useful code out of the Turn Towards
Mouse behavior -
extremely simplified of course. It didn't work at all out of
the box. For
the record, the code I used looks like this:
angle = GetAngle(oldLoc - my.loc) - 90
if my.rotation <> angle then my.rotation = angle
With the following code copied (mostly verbatim, but
simplified) from the
Turn Towards Mouse:
on GetAngle slope
deltaH = slope[1]
deltaV = slope[2]
if deltaH then
slope = float (deltaV) / deltaH
angle = atan (slope)
if deltaH < 0 then angle = angle + pi
else
if deltaV > 0 then angle = pi / 2
else if deltaV < 0 then angle = (3 * pi) / 2
else angle = 0
end if
return (angle * 180) / pi
end GetAngle
It seems to do pretty much what my original code did, only it
considers
those divide-by-zero situations separately as special cases.
Still seems
like more code than should be necessary to do what it does -
this feels like
the sort of thing that should be possible with 1-2 lines of
code, but
apparently it's not that simple...

JComboBox keeps focus after mouse select...

I have an application that consists of a JTable, with both text and numerical editors and column sorting. The value parameters in the table are edited using an Integer Editor and the text values are selected using a ComboBox. The problem I have is that after I click a selection on the ComboBox, the focus remains on the ComboBox and if I don't physically change the focus of the box (click another editor) before I sort the column, I get undefined selection results in the box. I am looking for a way to stopCellEditing() and remove the focus from the edited comboBox automatically after a mouse click selection. Thanks, guys.

I inherit from DefaultCellEditor and create my own ComboBoxEditor, so it should function as a DefaultCellEditor would. Maybe another example of its erratic actions will help... It seems that sometimes, I will change the value of one combo box and the value of another will change accordingly (to the same value I set in the first combobox). The setSelectedItem() methods are never called for that second one, but the text value is changed, so the next time you click on the faulty box the change is saved. This same thing happens if after changing the first combo box I highlight multiple rows of the JTable. One or two other random boxes along that column will change. I am never telling them to change their values!?

TextField get focus by mouse?

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent actionevent) {
if ( textField.isFocusOwner()==true)
if(textField.getText().equals("Please input text") )
textField.setText("");
}But TextField get focus by pressing "Enter key".
How could i use mouse to get focus in TextField??
Thanks a lot !!

you can add a mouse listener to you frame so whenever someone clicks any of the mouse buttons it will give the text field the focus. Is that what you are looking for?

Weird lines follow mouse cursor... (PICS)

I have a iMac 2.4Ghz and it has weird lines that follow the mouse cursor at all times. Does anybody have suggestions as of what it could be? Computer is out of warranty.
Here's a pic.
http://tinypic.com/r/5bryap/3

Before concluding it is hardware related (which is possible), I would start up from a different system (such as your Mac OS X installation disc). If that makes the problem go away, you can try to further isolate the cause by booting normally and creating a new admin user account using System Preferences Accounts pane.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.5/en/8235.html
Log out and log in to the new account. In the new account, do you see this problem. Since the new account uses default user preference settings (and does not have any third-party background processes), if the problem goes away, there must be something in your normal user account that is the cause.
Actually, before you do anything else, if you have not done so already, you should do the general trouble-shooting +first steps+, reset PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
and run +Repair Disk Permissions+ in Disk Utility.

Focus follows mouse

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