ralphw@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) (06/13/88)
In article <1596@iscuva.ISCS.COM>, jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey) writes: ... >In article <735@titan.SW.MCC.COM> janssen@titan (Bill Janssen) writes: >>...time we didn't warp the mouse; the user had to type ^X^F, then move the >>mouse to the minibuffer, then type in the file name, then move the mouse >>back. Truly a pain. Warping the mouse turned out to be a simple and >This is where having the input focus separate from where the mouse >pointer resides comes in handy. The Mac works this way -- you need to do >more than just move the mouse to change input focus (clicking is the >'blessed' way). I now try to avoid Macs for this reason. Anyone got a patch for this behavior? Clicking to change input focus is distinctly 'unhandy' for me. The guts of a 'window system' should only provide mechanism; policy is the scope of window managers, user interface designers writers, applications, and most importanly, the user! X11's configurable window manager are a big win in this regard. The emacs in question would probably get along best by a moving the cursor itself to the minibuffer input area, then moving it back after it's done. Sort of like a Mac dialog box. My main usage of the mouse is for picking things I'm interested in. I think that even if I used graphic editors and such I still might prefer to press a mouse button to move the application pointer (either spring-loaded or a toggle which would deactivate when I left the window for a bit), and just a regular movement of the mouse to change the input focus. Of course, this is all highly application dependent, mainly a function of how cluttered your desktop is and whether you're mostly manipulating or browsing. -- - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: ralphw@ius2.cs.cmu.edu Phone:(412)268-{2847,3275} CMU-{BUGS,DARK} Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA