Disable "click to activate" windows in Mac OS X Tiger?

chibislick · 02-05-2007, 12:37 AM

Is there a way to disable this behavior?

I've seen a "fix" for this for the X11 manager (defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true) but I don't think that works for generic Mac OS X Applications like Firefox, Photoshop and etc.

Any ideas?

Thank you,

chibislick · 02-05-2007, 02:58 AM

I should clarify that what I want is not "Focus Follows Mouse" (which MondoMouse application can do), but just disable having to click to activate program windows like Firefox and some others.

DeltaMac · 02-05-2007, 06:59 AM

Can you add a little explanation? What is it that you want to happen with inactive windows? NOT coming to the front when you click? Or, the Focus Follows Mouse (that you said is not relevant)?

chibislick · 02-05-2007, 07:12 AM

let's say I'm working on photoshop and want to click a link on my firefox browser. I first have to click on the firefox window to activate it then it allows me to click on a link. Same thing happens when I'd like to click on an item in Xtorrent for exemple, I first have to click the Xtorrent window to activate it, then I can select an item.

I basically have to click twice do make an action on a particular window if I'm working on another.

It is more obvious when you're working with two monitors, or when you simply have both applications side by side instead of one behind another.

cwtnospam · 02-05-2007, 10:13 AM

Command-click the link.

DavidRavenMoon · 02-05-2007, 11:43 AM

Command-Tab to that application, or click on the dock icon. That brings the app to the front and makes the window active at the same time. Then you don't have to click on the window twice. Just click the link.

ArsonSmith · 03-22-2007, 04:29 PM

I can't believe this still hasn't been fixed after several years. This is a huge usability problem for me. If I am editing something in the foreground while I have documentation in the back ground, on Linux and Windows I can can use my scroll wheel on the background window to scroll it around with out bringing it to focus. OSX still has no way to do this. As well as just the annoying having to double click links and buttons of unfocused windows.

I want Mouse Focus to Follow the Mouse. Don't bring windows to the front unless they have been clicked but allow me to scroll within the windows with the mouse wheel and/or click a button without extra steps. Command-tab and double clicking is not the solution it is the problem.

blubbernaut · 03-22-2007, 06:28 PM

You want click-through (I think I've heard it called that before).

It does work natively in some circumstances...I just can't seem to find any at the moment.

DeltaMac · 03-22-2007, 06:34 PM

Yes, the window control widgets (close, minimize,zoom) function without bringing the window forward.

arsonsmith - doesn't MondoMouse handle your situation?
http://www.atomicbird.com/mondomouse

ArsonSmith · 03-26-2007, 12:34 AM

No, not even close. It brings entire window focus to the front when you point to a window. All I want is to be able to scroll a background window with the scroll wheel without bringing it to the front and to not have to double click to activate a background windows visible buttons.

As an example use case:
Say I read a web page about a trick to do in photo shop. I am trying to follow the directions from the web site so in Linux/Gnome I would place (in the case gimp) my photo editor in such a way I can still see the website, but my in edit picture is still visible. When I want to scroll down the web site some I point to the window and scroll the wheel and the website scrolls without the window coming completely into focus. I can then without having any other special modifiers go back to working on my photo. MondoMouse brings the background window up to cover my working window.

I belive this is called Mouse Focus Follows Mouse or possibly click through rather than Window Focus Follows Mouse. MondoMouse does the latter.

ArsonSmith · 03-26-2007, 01:01 AM

I just remembered another part of this that has caused me some serious problems. While doing work on something I get a meeting notice popup saying I have a meeting in 15 minutes. I click snooze and switch back to my working window I then miss my meeting.

Know why? This has happend more than once. All I am doing is bringing the window into focus then swapping back to my previous window. I am starting to get use to making sure that the notification is snoozed now, but this is horrible.

eeksll · 03-14-2008, 11:50 PM

I also find this feature/lack of feature annoying. Often i have firefox open alongside my IDE and I constantly have to click twice to open a new link.

willpower101 · 08-24-2011, 03:36 PM

I know this thread is old, but I would just like to point out that after 4 years of macintosh development this still hasn't been fixed.

I had this thread open in one window
And my email open in another
I registered in this window
and had to click twice in the first to check my email
once I confirmed my registration
I had to move my mouse to this window, click on "Post Reply" with no effect just to gain focus, then click a second time to actually post a reply.

psyjoniz · 05-22-2012, 07:14 AM

So some 5+ years later and not a single person who could make a difference has realized that this should be a configuration option somewhere. having to click twice in Mac OS X to hit a link in an unfocused window is just as bad as not being able to hover and scroll an unfocused window in Windows. When will you people learn to get over your ego's, your bad initial design and start building things like this objectively? If half the people say x and the other half say y the the solution is to give them the choice via configuration.

DeltaMac · 05-22-2012, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psyjoniz


	So some 5+ years later and not a single person who could make a difference has realized that this should be a configuration option somewhere. having to click twice in Mac OS X to hit a link in an unfocused window is just as bad as not being able to hover and scroll an unfocused window in Windows. When will you people learn to get over your ego's, your bad initial design and start building things like this objectively? If half the people say x and the other half say y the the solution is to give them the choice via configuration.

"When will you people learn... ?"
First time I've ever been lumped in with developers. I'm not sure if I like it

I reread this post several times, and it didn't quite make sense, until I realized it's all sarcasm....
Shouldn't there be a 'sarcasm alert' at the beginning of your post?

psyjoniz · 05-22-2012, 11:42 AM

No sarcasm and if you fit into the group of people "who could make a difference" then yes I was talking to you. Otherwise, I was not. Perhaps if you had actually re-read the post as you claimed, you'd have picked up on that identifier.

willpower101 · 05-22-2012, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by psyjoniz


	having to click twice in Mac OS X to hit a link in an unfocused window is just as bad as not being able to hover and scroll an unfocused window in Windows.

This is built in by default in windows.

So, I still don't get this guy's sarcasm? Is he saying that there is an option to enable click focus in osx? Because I don't see one.

DeltaMac · 05-22-2012, 12:46 PM

Was that sarcasm, too?

I apologize - I really didn't intend to dismiss your post, but you did offer the opinion (which I paraphrase) that if enough people want a choice, then there should be a choice. That's the main part that I didn't agree with. It assumes that a setting to change that configuration even exists.
I do look at the great configuration utility, MacPilot, which can change settings on virtually anything on a Mac that has modifiable settings, including a lot of items that need a lot of rationalization to ever change, such as those that change the delay period for certain screen elements. If MacPilot doesn't allow you to change a specific item, then likely it is not an allowable change (no provision for the change in the system internal code)
That would mean that the folks at Apple are those "who could make a difference", and Apple is the best place to offer your suggestions through the normal 'bug reporting' process, here:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html
Or, if you are a registered developer, then through the feedback method that you would already know about... https://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/

ganbustein · 05-22-2012, 06:42 PM

Uh, on both Snow Leopard and Lion I can scroll background windows with no problem, using gestures with either the Magic Mouse or the Magic Trackpad.

Clicking in a window brings it to the front, so if you scroll by clicking on scrollbar in a background window, focus shifts to that window. Just don't use clicking on scrollbars to scroll if you want the window to stay in the background. (On Lion, with scrollbars hidden as they are by default, you aren't even tempted to click on them. Scrolling using gestures is encouraged by the UI, and It Just Works™.)

I realize this thread started pre-Leopard (and therefore pre-Magic Anything), but many of the later commenters seem unaware of how much the UI has improved since Tiger. Just goes to show how hard it can be to unlearn old habits, especially since Apple strives to make the old habits continue working. (Except for Lion, and the furor over Natural Scrolling, Auto-save's auto-lock, et al. still hasn't died down.)

I remember being a "rat" in Psych 101 in college. We had to run a maze (printed on a sheet of paper) while looking through a hole in a sliding cover sheet (to mimic a real rat's limited view of the maze), penciling in our path so we could go back and look at wrong turns, etc. We had a stack of ten mazes, and were timed to see how quickly we could learn the shortest path through the maze.

What they didn't tell us was that the ten mazes weren't identical. Part way through the stack, they added a shortcut. Some of us found the shortcut, some of us (me, for example) did not. My excuse is that my shortcut didn't appear until maze #7. Other "rats" got the shortcut as early as #3.

By analogy, I guess the longer you've been using your computer, the harder it is to learn new shortcuts as they become available.

chabig · 05-22-2012, 07:42 PM

I believe click-through is an application feature. If your favorite app doesn't do it, then talk to the developer, not Apple.

02-05-2007, 12:37 AM	#1
chibislick Prospect Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 4	Disable "click to activate" windows in Mac OS X Tiger? Is there a way to disable this behavior? I've seen a "fix" for this for the X11 manager (defaults write com.apple.x11 wm_ffm true) but I don't think that works for generic Mac OS X Applications like Firefox, Photoshop and etc. Any ideas? Thank you,

02-05-2007, 11:43 AM	#6
DavidRavenMoon Triple-A Player Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Montclair, NJ Posts: 183	Command-Tab to that application, or click on the dock icon. That brings the app to the front and makes the window active at the same time. Then you don't have to click on the window twice. Just click the link. __________________ iMac 2.93 GHz Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X 10.7.3, 8 GB RAM. www.david-schwab.com www.myspace.com/davidschwab

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02-05-2007, 02:58 AM	#2
chibislick Prospect Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 4	I should clarify that what I want is not "Focus Follows Mouse" (which MondoMouse application can do), but just disable having to click to activate program windows like Firefox and some others.

02-05-2007, 06:59 AM	#3
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,959	Can you add a little explanation? What is it that you want to happen with inactive windows? NOT coming to the front when you click? Or, the Focus Follows Mouse (that you said is not relevant)?

02-05-2007, 07:12 AM	#4
chibislick Prospect Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 4	let's say I'm working on photoshop and want to click a link on my firefox browser. I first have to click on the firefox window to activate it then it allows me to click on a link. Same thing happens when I'd like to click on an item in Xtorrent for exemple, I first have to click the Xtorrent window to activate it, then I can select an item. I basically have to click twice do make an action on a particular window if I'm working on another. It is more obvious when you're working with two monitors, or when you simply have both applications side by side instead of one behind another.

02-05-2007, 10:13 AM	#5
cwtnospam League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 8,475	Command-click the link.

03-22-2007, 04:29 PM	#7
ArsonSmith Prospect Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 5	I can't believe this still hasn't been fixed after several years. This is a huge usability problem for me. If I am editing something in the foreground while I have documentation in the back ground, on Linux and Windows I can can use my scroll wheel on the background window to scroll it around with out bringing it to focus. OSX still has no way to do this. As well as just the annoying having to double click links and buttons of unfocused windows. I want Mouse Focus to Follow the Mouse. Don't bring windows to the front unless they have been clicked but allow me to scroll within the windows with the mouse wheel and/or click a button without extra steps. Command-tab and double clicking is not the solution it is the problem.

03-22-2007, 06:28 PM	#8
blubbernaut MVP Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 1,856	You want click-through (I think I've heard it called that before). It does work natively in some circumstances...I just can't seem to find any at the moment.

03-22-2007, 06:34 PM	#9
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,959	Yes, the window control widgets (close, minimize,zoom) function without bringing the window forward. arsonsmith - doesn't MondoMouse handle your situation? http://www.atomicbird.com/mondomouse

03-26-2007, 12:34 AM	#10
ArsonSmith Prospect Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 5	No, not even close. It brings entire window focus to the front when you point to a window. All I want is to be able to scroll a background window with the scroll wheel without bringing it to the front and to not have to double click to activate a background windows visible buttons. As an example use case: Say I read a web page about a trick to do in photo shop. I am trying to follow the directions from the web site so in Linux/Gnome I would place (in the case gimp) my photo editor in such a way I can still see the website, but my in edit picture is still visible. When I want to scroll down the web site some I point to the window and scroll the wheel and the website scrolls without the window coming completely into focus. I can then without having any other special modifiers go back to working on my photo. MondoMouse brings the background window up to cover my working window. I belive this is called Mouse Focus Follows Mouse or possibly click through rather than Window Focus Follows Mouse. MondoMouse does the latter.

03-26-2007, 01:01 AM	#11
ArsonSmith Prospect Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 5	I just remembered another part of this that has caused me some serious problems. While doing work on something I get a meeting notice popup saying I have a meeting in 15 minutes. I click snooze and switch back to my working window I then miss my meeting. Know why? This has happend more than once. All I am doing is bringing the window into focus then swapping back to my previous window. I am starting to get use to making sure that the notification is snoozed now, but this is horrible.

03-14-2008, 11:50 PM	#12
eeksll Registered User Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 2	I also find this feature/lack of feature annoying. Often i have firefox open alongside my IDE and I constantly have to click twice to open a new link.

08-24-2011, 03:36 PM	#13
willpower101 Prospect Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 2	I know this thread is old, but I would just like to point out that after 4 years of macintosh development this still hasn't been fixed. I had this thread open in one window And my email open in another I registered in this window and had to click twice in the first to check my email once I confirmed my registration I had to move my mouse to this window, click on "Post Reply" with no effect just to gain focus, then click a second time to actually post a reply.

05-22-2012, 07:14 AM	#14
psyjoniz Prospect Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 3	So some 5+ years later and not a single person who could make a difference has realized that this should be a configuration option somewhere. having to click twice in Mac OS X to hit a link in an unfocused window is just as bad as not being able to hover and scroll an unfocused window in Windows. When will you people learn to get over your ego's, your bad initial design and start building things like this objectively? If half the people say x and the other half say y the the solution is to give them the choice via configuration.

05-22-2012, 11:42 AM	#16
psyjoniz Prospect Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 3	No sarcasm and if you fit into the group of people "who could make a difference" then yes I was talking to you. Otherwise, I was not. Perhaps if you had actually re-read the post as you claimed, you'd have picked up on that identifier.

05-22-2012, 12:46 PM	#18
DeltaMac League Commissioner Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 7,959	Was that sarcasm, too? I apologize - I really didn't intend to dismiss your post, but you did offer the opinion (which I paraphrase) that if enough people want a choice, then there should be a choice. That's the main part that I didn't agree with. It assumes that a setting to change that configuration even exists. I do look at the great configuration utility, MacPilot, which can change settings on virtually anything on a Mac that has modifiable settings, including a lot of items that need a lot of rationalization to ever change, such as those that change the delay period for certain screen elements. If MacPilot doesn't allow you to change a specific item, then likely it is not an allowable change (no provision for the change in the system internal code) That would mean that the folks at Apple are those "who could make a difference", and Apple is the best place to offer your suggestions through the normal 'bug reporting' process, here: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html Or, if you are a registered developer, then through the feedback method that you would already know about... https://developer.apple.com/bugreporter/

05-22-2012, 06:42 PM	#19
ganbustein MVP Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Berkeley CA USA Posts: 1,010	Uh, on both Snow Leopard and Lion I can scroll background windows with no problem, using gestures with either the Magic Mouse or the Magic Trackpad. Clicking in a window brings it to the front, so if you scroll by clicking on scrollbar in a background window, focus shifts to that window. Just don't use clicking on scrollbars to scroll if you want the window to stay in the background. (On Lion, with scrollbars hidden as they are by default, you aren't even tempted to click on them. Scrolling using gestures is encouraged by the UI, and It Just Works™.) I realize this thread started pre-Leopard (and therefore pre-Magic Anything), but many of the later commenters seem unaware of how much the UI has improved since Tiger. Just goes to show how hard it can be to unlearn old habits, especially since Apple strives to make the old habits continue working. (Except for Lion, and the furor over Natural Scrolling, Auto-save's auto-lock, et al. still hasn't died down.) I remember being a "rat" in Psych 101 in college. We had to run a maze (printed on a sheet of paper) while looking through a hole in a sliding cover sheet (to mimic a real rat's limited view of the maze), penciling in our path so we could go back and look at wrong turns, etc. We had a stack of ten mazes, and were timed to see how quickly we could learn the shortest path through the maze. What they didn't tell us was that the ten mazes weren't identical. Part way through the stack, they added a shortcut. Some of us found the shortcut, some of us (me, for example) did not. My excuse is that my shortcut didn't appear until maze #7. Other "rats" got the shortcut as early as #3. By analogy, I guess the longer you've been using your computer, the harder it is to learn new shortcuts as they become available.

05-22-2012, 07:42 PM	#20
chabig Hall of Famer Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 2,934	I believe click-through is an application feature. If your favorite app doesn't do it, then talk to the developer, not Apple.