[comp.sys.mac.wanted] input Focus?

cw1z+@andrew.cmu.edu (Cushing Courtney Whitney) (08/14/90)

Does anyone out there know if there is an init that would change
the input focus on the mac from explicit (having to click on a
window to make it active) to implicit (just having to place the
cursor over the window to make it active).......

thanks,
cush

philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) (08/16/90)

In article <0am0Sna00Uh74160lC@andrew.cmu.edu>, cw1z+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Cushing Courtney Whitney) writes:
> Does anyone out there know if there is an init that would change
> the input focus on the mac from explicit (having to click on a
> window to make it active) to implicit (just having to place the
> cursor over the window to make it active).......

I'm not sure if this would work very well, since the Mac tactic is ususally
to bring the "focussed on" window to the front. 2 possibilities for
implementing such an init:

o it would have to patch the system so _all_ applications would
  focus on a window without bringing it to the front (sounds like close
  to impossible - correct me if I'm wrong)
o or every time you moved the cursor, you would risk having a different
  window jump to the front.

Summary: learn to like focus on click, or switch to a different OS.

Philip Machanick
philip@pescadero.stanford.edu

barnett@grymoire.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) (08/16/90)

In article <0am0Sna00Uh74160lC@andrew.cmu.edu>, cw1z+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Cushing Courtney Whitney) writes:
> Does anyone out there know if there is an init that would change
> the input focus on the mac from explicit (having to click on a
> window to make it active) to implicit (just having to place the
> cursor over the window to make it active).......

In article <1990Aug15.181746.27937@Neon.Stanford.EDU> philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) writes:

>   o it would have to patch the system so _all_ applications would
>     focus on a window without bringing it to the front (sounds like close
>     to impossible - correct me if I'm wrong)

I added the programmer newsgroup.

I believe you are right. Part of the problem is the lack of a separate
notifier, like some Unix window systems. In these environments, the
program talks to a notifier and tells it what events it is interested
in. The notifier intercepts all events, and passes through those
events the application wants to handle. This allows event queuing
across multiple applications. This also simplifies the programming 
considerably, IMHO.

In the Mac programming environment (correct me if I am wrong), the
application handles all of the events, and must decide what to do with
them when it gets these events. 

Without a notifier, I do not know how this could be done.  Can the
event manager do this, without rewriting all of the applications?
--
Bruce G. Barnett	barnett@crd.ge.com	uunet!crdgw1!barnett