Why do I have to click twice to select something in a MS program that's not in focus?

sunnyrio · Jul 17, 2022

Edwin said:
I'm not sure what's driving me more nuts..., the anomaly itself or the determination to find a resolve!!!

I'm fairly happy with a 50ms version of the change focus when the mouse goes over an app. Usually if I put the cursor over something, I'm about to interact with it. I failed to see the point of the standard 500ms delay.

Edwin said:
That happens quite often, with me and women!!!

You tire them out in bed?

Edwin · Jul 17, 2022

sunnyrio said:
You tire them out in bed?

barreleye · Jul 17, 2022

sunnyrio said:
No program by any other company behaves like this! Here's an analogy: Two people are walking along the street chatting. I tell one of them their house is on fire. They do something about it. Now lets imagine that person is from Microsoft. He's walking along chatting and I say "your house is on fire". His response is "oh, you wanted my attention, what can I do for you today?" Please somebody tell me there's a patch to get around this? It actually annoys me about 20 times every single day. Click.... and.... why isn't it doing anything? Oh! MS made it. Click again, there we are, wasted my time again.

It's just a particular design sensibility. My single most hated Microsoft design sensibility has to be their implementation of smooth scrolling. I can't stand the laggy way they do it.

sunnyrio · Jul 17, 2022

barreleye said:
It's just a particular design sensibility. My single most hated Microsoft design sensibility has to be their implementation of smooth scrolling. I can't stand the laggy way they do it.

And I can't stand the hidden/skinny scrollbars in Windows 11.

P.S. if this fills with trolls in a minute, I may have mentioned this thread in usenet, there's some weird people over there.

Edwin · Jul 17, 2022

It's just Word, PowerPoint and Excel..., I can paste immediately, to an unfocused window in Publisher, OneNote, Outlook and Access!

TraderGary · Jul 17, 2022

I must be horribly insensitive. I've been with Microsoft since the beginning, and I've had most versions of Windows and Office. Today I subscribe to Microsoft 365. I use Word, Excel, and OneNote many times every day and I've never noticed the things that have been discussed here.

Now that they've been pointed out to me, I'll probably be annoyed every day now. Thanks a lot! :grrr:

Edwin · Jul 17, 2022

TraderGary said:
Now that they've been pointed out to me, I'll probably be annoyed every day now. Thanks a lot!

Whoops!!!

sunnyrio · Jul 17, 2022

TraderGary said:
I must be horribly insensitive. I've been with Microsoft since the beginning, and I've had most versions of Windows and Office. Today I subscribe to Microsoft 365. I use Word, Excel, and OneNote many times every day and I've never noticed the things that have been discussed here.

Now that they've been pointed out to me, I'll probably be annoyed every day now. Thanks a lot!

I notice it more because I have 5 monitors and tend to have more than one app visible a lot.

TraderGary · Jul 18, 2022

sunnyrio said:
I notice it more because I have 5 monitors and tend to have more than one app visible a lot.

I see my problem. I need more monitors! :wink:

sunnyrio · Jul 18, 2022

TraderGary said:
I see my problem. I need more monitors!

I get mine free on freecycle. The only one I paid for was £50 second hand, 20" 1600*1200. The others were free: 2 of 1280*1024 17", 1 of 1024*768 19", 1 of 1920*1080 22".

I do lots at once. Security cameras on one, Boinc distributed computing monitoring 7 computers and 3 smartphones on 2 of them , one I use to watch TV and one is the main one.

[glances at incoming power feed] Currently consuming 29.7 amps at 246V.

sunnyrio · Jul 27, 2022

Argh! Having got fed up with focussing when hovering the mouse over an app (ease of access option), turning it off doesn't take effect! I had to set the registry to a very large number of seconds. And yes I did remember to restart.

imanlien2020 · Jul 27, 2022

Berton said:
My thought? For a long time, with 2 or more programs open, it's always taken a click to first get a program into focus then the click, left or right, will work in that program that is in focus. Another way to get a program in focus is to click its icon on the Taskbar.

i swear isnt there a setting for this in windows, I mean where focus is supposed to automatically happen upon mouse hover? Ive seen this before just never tried to do anything about it. I always have a bunch of windows or programs opn and 2 monitors and I thought i set windows to bring focus automatically if hovering on any window no matter if its behind another window or not.

sunnyrio · Jul 27, 2022

Yes, that's the one I was using after it was mentioned earlier in this thread.

Start > Control Panel > Easy of Access > Easy of Access Center > Make the mouse easier to use > check Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse option

But I don't like that either. Just because I've shoved the cursor out of the way doesn't mean I'm wanting to use another program.

The main problem I have with it is opening a dialog box from program A, which appears over the top of program B. Moving the cursor across to the dialog box crosses program B and brings it on top of the dialog box. Not sure why programs can't open their dialogs in front of themselves.

Or if you just happen to have two programs overlapping, move the mouse to one of them, crossing a bit of the other, and it hides it.

What we need is for Microsoft to fix this bug!

Edwin · Dec 16, 2023

The 'Takes Two Clicks' anomaly still survives!

Know what else drives me nuts?
The Options window always opens with the right side partially shrunk, it never remembers the size you left it at!!!

And, I never realized this:
Mouse wheeling anywhere on the Title Bar/Ribbon changes tabs, but, only on the PowerPoint Icon does it change the Tiles!!!

How do you shut that

off!?!?!?

rasmasyean · Dec 17, 2023

sunnyrio said:
No program by any other company behaves like this! Here's an analogy: Two people are walking along the street chatting. I tell one of them their house is on fire. They do something about it. Now lets imagine that person is from Microsoft. He's walking along chatting and I say "your house is on fire". His response is "oh, you wanted my attention, what can I do for you today?" Please somebody tell me there's a patch to get around this? It actually annoys me about 20 times every single day. Click.... and.... why isn't it doing anything? Oh! MS made it. Click again, there we are, wasted my time again.

LOL...so true!
How about this one?

I go over to my desk and I want to throw something I no longer want into the trash can. And it talks back to me and says, "OK, I'll go away, but the actual item you want is somewhere else. Look at my tiny badge. Can't you tell it's pointing to the sky?".

Face, it. Monopolies do whatever they want. :wink:

lintek214 · Dec 30, 2023

sunnyrio said:
Yes, that's the one I was using after it was mentioned earlier in this thread.

Start > Control Panel > Easy of Access > Easy of Access Center > Make the mouse easier to use > check Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse option

But I don't like that either. Just because I've shoved the cursor out of the way doesn't mean I'm wanting to use another program.

The main problem I have with it is opening a dialog box from program A, which appears over the top of program B. Moving the cursor across to the dialog box crosses program B and brings it on top of the dialog box. Not sure why programs can't open their dialogs in front of themselves.

Or if you just happen to have two programs overlapping, move the mouse to one of them, crossing a bit of the other, and it hides it.

What we need is for Microsoft to fix this bug!

I'm new to Win11 and decided to reach back into old threads to see if there were issues solved that experienced Win11 users have overcome. I see this. Follow mouse focus issue is one I liked in my Linux days. It has been my experience in Windows that MS never leveraged this functionality and left it to 3rd party developers to implement. But this thread mentioned the Control Panel option which I have never seen before. I turned it on, and it works as expected.

I tested your scenario between Word (program A) and Edge (program B). Starting with my focus in Edge, I moved the pointer over to Word. Word pops to the foreground. I click a menu to popup the Word macro dialog window. The pointer is still visibly off to the side (not set in the dialog popup). When I begin to type, the characters are correctly being entered into the macro name box. I moved the pointer back into Edge. Without clicking, I can successfully scroll the current page in view. I go back to Word and do earase and or type just where I left off. No problem.

Did I test the scenario correctly?

rasmasyean · Dec 30, 2023

I bet this click to focus feature is one of the culprits of password leaks.
IMHO, this is actually an ergonomic security flaw. Most people don't use that control panel option, let alone know about it.

lintek214 · Jan 1, 2024

rasmasyean said:
I bet this click to focus feature is one of the culprits of password leaks.
IMHO, this is actually an ergonomic security flaw. Most people don't use that control panel option, let alone know about it.

LOL. I'm not that cynical, but I wouldn't put it pass MS implementing something like that.

Edwin · Jan 1, 2024

The click twice thing is still annoying!!!

(View in Full Screen at 2160p is best)

lintek214 · Jan 1, 2024

Edwin said:
The click twice thing is still annoying!!!
(View in Full Screen at 2160p is best)

So weird seeing what happens to you, but I could not reproduce any of these scenarios.
1) The [no title] fly out is only seen in PP. It never follows the new focused app window.
2) When I copy text from Word and change focus to PP, I can paste with the first right click. I then changed focus to Notepad, right click paste, then changed focus to CMD, right click paste. Worked every time.
3) No issue on the 3rd scenario.

I have Windows 11 Home, Office 2007, and a Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500. I also have enabled: Activate a window...