Focus Follows Mouse

[Rob Riggs]

Hi all,

This is an editorial comment for the Fedora desktop developers.

I've just done my first Fedora install since 8 or 9 with Fedora 12.  Why 
is it now so difficult to set up "focus follows mouse" under Gnome?  
Click to focus is just annoying.  It sucked for me when "click to focus" 
became the default, but I could live with finding the desktop preference 
and setting it.  But it makes this user really annoyed (Grrr!) that I 
have to ask about it on some mailing list, install an obscure package, 
and change the setting.  I get the feeling the the desktop developers 
think they know better than the user.

Look, I *can* work either way -- I live with "focus follows mouse" on 
Windows.  But this is one of the key reasons that Linux is my primary 
desktop -- it sucks less and "focus follows mouse" is one of the big 
reasons for that, especially when using multiple desktops.  Point and 
type -- not point, click, type.  (Yes, I know it can be changed on 
Windows.)  It is especially annoying when not only does focus require a 
click, but that click also raises the window.  I want focus and raising 
to be separate operations.  There are plenty of operations that work 
much better with the focus window not being on top of the window stack.  
Forcing the window I want on top is a PITA that focus follows mouse avoids.

I don't care to impose my preferences on anyone.  I am not asking for 
"focus follows mouse" to be the default (though that would be my 
preference).  But please make it easy to set my preferences.  Please 
bring a little Christmas cheer to the Gnome world and make "Window 
Preferences" part of the default Gnome desktop installation again!

Thanks,

Rob