On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 02:13:00PM -0600, Peter da Silva wrote: > On 2010-12-21, at 14:00, Aristotle Pagaltzis wrote: > > * Gerry Lawrence <gwlp...@gmail.com> [2010-12-21 20:05]: > >> Focus follows mouse - which I can get on any unix, easily, and > >> any microsoft, with a little more effort, is impossible on the > >> MAC. > > > It's actually *technically impossible* to implement Focus Follows > > Mouse on MacOS. Do you want to know why? It's because of the menu > > bar at the top of the screen. > > It's impossible, but not because of the issue you listed. That's an > implementation detail that's really washed out by the related user-interface > detail. > > When you focus on a window, two things automatically happen. > > 1. The window is raised. We can stop doing that and make you click on the > title bar to raise or lower a window, so we can work that one out.
Even without focus follows mouse, I often want my active window not to be raised. > > 2. The menu bar changes to match the focussed window. This obviates the issue > you mentioned, but brings up a bigger one. Now you can't click on the menu > bar because as soon as you leave the app you lose the menu bar! Uhm, sloppy focus? When I use my Linux box (or in previous lifes, my Solaris/HP/ or Cygwin box), my application doesn't lose focus, until my mouse enters *another* application. Focus isn't lost by just having the mouse leave the application. Of course, you'd still have a problem if you'd have to travel over several other applications to reach the menu. > > To implement focus follows mouse on the Mac would require an alternate > mechanism to bring up the menu bar. Such as making it a default contextual > menu on the app.
