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From: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: window focus revisited
Message-ID: <339@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Date: 3 Dec 90 05:12:35 GMT
Reply-To: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn C. Reid)
Organization: RightBrain Software, Woodside, CA
Lines: 43

Just when we thought the discussion about click-to-type versus mouse
focus had died down, now this, hot off the wire.

The new Terminal application in 2.0 has a very mysterious entry in its
Shell menu called "Steal Keys".  Unfortunately Terminal has no Help in
its menus, so I had to go digging to figure out what this did, but I
found it, thanks to Digital Librarian.

The "Steal Keys" option in Terminal makes it possible to focus the Terminal
application simply by moving the mouse into its window (no click is required).
It is purportedly for debugging, as in this passage from the documentation,
but it is interesting in light of our discussion about this topic.  I'm
not sure how it's done, but it appears that Terminal simply does not become
the key window, but does "steal" keydown events from the event queue somehow.
The previously-active application is still highlighted and looks active.

Here's the passage from the docs:

  The Steal Keys command is useful when you're running the GNU debugger.
  The purpose of this command is to allow you to effectively debug an
  application from a shell window in which the debugger is running.  The
  debugging process inevitably involves alternately activating Terminal
  (to type debugger commands) and the other application (to test the
  application being debugged).  However, clicking to alternatively
  activate and deactivate the application being debugged causes the
  application to change its state in unpredictable ways.

  To let you get around this problem, the Steal Keys command puts
  Terminal in a special debugging mode.  In this mode, Terminal can be
  activated or deactivated simply by moving the cursor into or out of
  the Terminal shell window.  Therefore, you can easily activate
  Terminal whenever you want to type a debugger command, without
  clicking and thus affecting the state of the application you're
  debugging.  When you're ready to exit debugging mode, click in the
  Terminal window to make the Terminal main menu reappear, and then
  choose this command again (its name will have changed to Yield Keys).

I'd be curious to know just how this is done, and whether or not it is
considered a hack that you and I should not do in our applicatons :-)

Hey, Scott, have anything to toss in about this feature?

Glenn