(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.

[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.

[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.