LQ Poll: Which Mouse Focus Behavior do you Prefer in Linux?

Sloppy! My 人差し指 (the second finger, I don't know English name) is not so tough. Not auto-raise. Sometime I want to keep my firefox under my terminal.

window w/ focus = the active window (the one a user is connected to or the one a user can modify with an interface)
"click" behavior = focus belongs to last window clicked (mouse behavior of typical desktop environments: xfce, kde, gnome, blackbox, fluxbox, etc)
"mouse" behavior = focus belongs to window with mouse hovering on top (twm behavior and behavior of xinit w/ no window manager)
"sloppy" behavior = focus on last window mouse hovered over (not the default behavior of any window manager I'm familiar with)
"auto-raise" feature = window with focus will rise above other windows automatically (as opposed to a window having focus but can still be below other windows and some of the graphics may be hidden unless a user hovers over part of the window for a preset period of time)

Meh-- you're welcome.

I presume option 3 "Mouse" means: focus follows the mouse WITHOUT auto-raise.

Give it try folks. You can slide the mouse from the top window to a background window, often displayed en echelon, with a little edge showing at the left and bottom of the screen. The focus follows the mouse so you can type into the background window while still viewing the top window.

It may be confusing at first but it's convenient because you can then view the output of a command from the top screen while composing a command at the prompt on the background screen.

Try Plasma desktop for easy switching between focus styles. (styles?)
(No idea about other DE's)

Focus follows mouse (hover controlled focus) is the only logical choice and window raise requires ALT+ click.

Why?
When I wish to read from one window and type in another the automatic nonsense screws me royaly.

There's already too much clicking! Stop it with the clikcing please. Ever heard of RSI? Yeah - TOO much clicking causes that! Just use your keyboard to switch windows. In fact, just use your keyboard to do most things.

Fortunately, at home I use a desktop that lets you focus where you need.
Unfortunately, at work have to use Windonts where you can change almost nothing. You're stuck with most of someone else's idea of ideal. I think I have RSI while @ work....

Go free!

Originally Posted by mzilikazi There's already too much clicking! Stop it with the clikcing please. Ever heard of RSI? Yeah - TOO much clicking causes that! Just use your keyboard to switch windows.

exactly.
some people also choose to use the keyboard to change focus - even less clicking.
i like the pointer to just get out of the way most of the time. in that case, hover controlled focus is a giant pita.

The natural behavior to me is mouse over with special click to raise.
This is what most people do in the real world, when they read something and take a note to it somewhere else.
So if I do not have enough screen estate to have my input window beside my browser I do not want my text editor to raise over my reading browser window whenever I type something.
Alas Microsoft decided some time ago that the default way to work is raise windows on activation and I guess most got used to this and do not even know about the alternatives.
Just count the number of clicks and mouse movements you need if you want to take notes on a wikipedia article just because you need to reactivate windows back and forth.

Originally Posted by yvesjv What's this mouse clicking,sloppy,auto-raise,etc thing? Real sysadmins don't click!

Ha! I once worked with a (then) Unix admin who said "Real programmers don't use a mouse!"
I was a Windows GUI geek at the time, hated (read: didn't want to learn) how vi worked, and coded in Notepad+

So it goes.
--Kurt Vonnegut

Not sure what sloppy is, but focus follows mouse quite intensive, with a 1s-1.5s delay.

Focus on click has become unusable to me.

I prefer mouse or sloppy. No autoraise because I alt-tab to brig windows to the front. Of course when I switch back and forth between Windows 10 and Linux, which I have to do at work, it becomes readily apparent the focus model in Windows 10 is seriously broken.

Wait! Linux has a mouse?????

Which command do I use to get that from the command line?


Seriously, default for Gnome. Just dont care too much about the mouse and rarely am in desktop mode to begin with.

I always use what used to be called "Focus follows pointer".

I often need to view one window while typing in another. I leave just a few lines of a terminal window showing under the larger window with the documentation. Then I can still type into the bottom window while the mouse hovers over it. You can't get that behavior with the Click styles. I also don't spend extra time clicking.

MS Windoze is worse. It often activates buttons and links just because you clicked in a window to bring to the front.

If A can do everything B can, and then some, use A, not B.

The Q ASS_U_MEs too much.

I can't use mouse 'cause tendinitis

I need a trackball

I read the wiki article, read all the posts, still don't know what the correct answer is for the default Plasma/KDE mouse behavior. How about click, sloppy(with auto-raise).

Originally Posted by onlyonemac Click to focus. Otherwise I have to move the mouse when I want to change the focus, and I can't always move it "out of the way" (e.g. in a terminal I don't want the mouse pointer obscuring the text). I use the keyboard most of the time and don't see why input focus should be tied to mouse position.

Fully agree...