Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!agate!shelby!msi.umn.edu!noc.MR.NET!gacvx2.gac.edu!scott From: scott@mcs-server.gac.edu (Scott Hess) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: NOT (click to type) in NeXTStep? Message-ID: Date: 13 Nov 90 05:04:11 GMT References: <1990Oct28.165341.6949@cs.cmu.edu> <56054@brunix.UUCP> <543@autodesk.COM> Organization: Gustavus Adolphus College Lines: 55 Nntp-Posting-Host: mcs-server.gac.edu In-reply-to: peb@Autodesk.COM's message of 12 Nov 90 22:21:29 GMTLines: 55 In article <543@autodesk.COM> peb@Autodesk.COM (Paul Baclaski) writes: Sun solves spurious-window-activation-problem by having a 200 millisecond time filter in which your mouse must stop for 200 milliseconds before the active window is switched. Sun also allows click-to-type. I've been thinking on this, and I think that this is doable. It is obvious, with the current setup of the NeXT "window manager" that raw move-to-focus will not work. Too much application swapping, too much busy-ness onscreen - it would be _annoying_. But, I think that the Sun style would work. Proposal: Click in a window makes that window the main/key window, and brings it to the front - like it does now. Move over a window and drop the mouse (for 200ms, or whatever) makes that window the main/key window but leaves it where it is in the window hierarchy (ie, covered if it is, or whatever). Conceivably, have alt-click make a window main without bringing it forward, just to be complete. Now, can this be done? Yes, an excellent DPS programmer who knows the internals of the window server could probably do it in a package. My gut feeling (as if you'd be interested) about how the windows work is that when you click on a window, the window server brings that window to the front, then sends the mouse event to the app (actually, the context, which handles the making-main stuff). I come to this conclusion by the fact that you can click a window who's apps is busy, and it comes to the front - so the app cannot be doing it. I'd envision this as a loadable package, much like the package distributed a long time ago (seems like it was over a year ago) to add the ability to bind a command-command-keystroke to an app and command-up/down to move windows up and down relative to other windows. Generally, how does one go about finding out the neat things that the window server does? I'd assume that all the clicking-in-window stuff is in a window package, and thus in some dictionary or another, but is there any documentation for this? Besides /usr/lib/NextStep/windowPackage1.0.ps, that is :-) Sorry to beat a dead horse, Hit him again for me, please :-) -- scott hess scott@gac.edu Independent NeXT Developer (Stuart) GAC Undergrad (Horrid. Simply Horrid. I mean the work!)