I want focus follows mouse in OSX

Posted by nuxi on 2009-Dec-13 at 05:17:27 in Computers (Login to reply)

I really wish Apple would allow focus follows mouse in OSX outside of just Terminal.app and X11.app. Even Windows supports it, the setting is available in TweakUI.

Lots of people say I'm crazy when I talk about focus follows mouse and I eventually learn they think focus means which window is on top. So let me clarify:

Focus means which window gets keyboard input.
Focus does not mean which window is on top.

The confusion comes from the fact that OSX and Windows automatically put the window with focus on top, this is actually called autoraise. Autoraise and focus follows mouse are related features that should both be configurable. As you can see in the following screenshot, TweakUI allows autoraise to be enabled or disabled if focus (called activation) follows mouse is enabled.



Why won't Apple give us the ability to enable focus follows mouse and disable autoraise?