(no subject)

[ewx]

Is there a generally accepted name for the Mac's completely bizarre mouse focus policy? If you don't know: click to focus for the left mouse button but point to focus for the others.

Comments

[simont]

I'm not sure I even understand what that description means. "Click to focus for the left mouse button" means that if you point the mouse at a window and then click the left button it doesn't gain focus until you click; but by that interpretation, "point to focus for the others" must surely mean that if you point the mouse at a window and then click the right button it gains focus as soon as you point! This is obviously a misparse, but I can't identify the right parse. I've never noticed anything odd about the Mac focus policy; it's always seemed to me like click-to-focus all the way.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

See below for more discussion. Another example is if Solo is not focused and I middle (IIRC) click to make a pencil note then the subsequent keypress doesn't actually reach Solo but whatever previously had, and still has, the keyboard focus.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Right click, not middle click, in this case.

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

That's a bit of a misleading way to describe it. "Point to focus" usually means the same as "focus follows mouse", that is, "the keyboard focus always is in the window pointed at by the mouse". Quartz does not support this (but X11 does, and you can run other window managers).

I think, but am not sure, that what you mean is that a left mouse click raises the target window (and gives it keyboard focus) but a right mouse click does not.

In playing about with this, I notice that some user interface objects respond to a left mouse click in a non-focussed window—for example, a folder in the Finder—but some do not (the window raises but the object is not selected)—for example, a folder in Mail.

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

a right mouse click does not

But that's not consistent either: right-clicking on some objects raises the window (folders in Finder) but right-click on other objects does not (folders in Mail).

[ewx.livejournal.com]

For example: I have Firefox and Terminal running. I left click on Terminal, and that windows is highlighted and the 'Terminal' menu is visible. Stuff I type goes into terminal.

If I now left click on some hyperlink in Firefox then what happens is that the Firefox window becomes highlight and the Firefox menu becomes visible. The link isn't followed until a second left click.

If on the other hand I'd middle-clicked on that link then Firefox opens a new tab for it - but the things described above for a left click don't happen.

If my description is a bit inaccurate, well, it's describing something that's rather crazy l-)

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

There are four possibilities when you click:

1. Nothing happens.
   
2. Window raised but object not selected.
   
3. Window not raised but object selected.
   
4. Window raised and object selected.

So there are 64 possible ways an object can respond to three mouse buttons.

Some examples:

• Folder in the Finder: click 4, ^click 4, ⌘click 4.
  
• Folder in Mail: click 4, ^click 3, ⌘click 3.
  
• Link in Safari: click 2, ^click 2, ⌘click 3.
  

I expect you can find objects which implement some of the other 61 possibilities.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Err, I may be missing something there, but you seem to be saying that there's lots of possibilities and no consistency in which gets chosen. Which seems to be just a generalization of what I said, except that I'm saying that the inconsistency is crazy, at least in specific cases.

I'm sure there might be places where it's not crazy but the practical effect is that I regularly find myself typing into one window when I thought I was operating on another, so I don't think I'm totally unjustified!

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

but you seem to be saying that there's lots of possibilities

Yes.

and no consistency in which gets chosen

I'm not sure I have quite enough data to be certain about this yet, but it looks that way, yes.

Which seems to be just a generalization of what I said

Indeed. You seem to be interpreting my comment as if I disagreed with you, but actually I agree with you. Maybe I should have said so explicitly?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Ah, the structure of your comment made me think it was going to be an explanation of why things were as they were, so when it didn't actually do that I was thrown into confusion l-)

[aardvark179.livejournal.com]

In some cases it's very deliberate user interaction choices (it should be possible to easily place keyboard focus in a safari window without accidentally following a non-obvious link, or on the other side clicking the pause button in iTunes probably means you want to pause now—whether the window has keyboard focus or not—because the pause button is big and obvious), but there seem to be a lot of hold overs from before they started taking this use case based approach.

One thing I think they've got wonderfully right in 10.5 which really annoys me in Windows is that scroll events go to the container the mouse pointer is over when you move the scroll wheel.

[fanf]

I think this is a combination of two principles: left click to focus, plus one action per click. So left-click on an unfocussed window raises it instead of performing the usual actions. Other buttons don't cause windows to be raised so their usual actions are not suppressed in unfocussed windows.

I guess it's possible for apps to break this logic and cause inconsistent behaviour.

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

Other buttons don't cause windows to be raised

... except in the Finder.

[fanf]

I wonder if the rewritten Finder in 10.6 will fix this.