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


sunnyrio

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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.
 

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I guess I would need to know specific examples. Single click works fine for me every where I expect it to.
 

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For me, it only happens with Office..., drives me nuts!!!
I've tried to find a work around to no avail!!!
 

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@Edwin where exactly in office? I don't use Office that often and when I do it's Word, but I haven't noticed single click not working. I do have to double click to select a word, but that's the way it's always been and is expected.
 

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@Edwin where exactly in office? I don't use Office that often and when I do it's Word, but I haven't noticed single click not working.
It's quite prominent in PowerPoint..., if mouse focus is away from PP, it takes one mouse click to give the PP window focus, then after that you can interact with the document! 🤷‍♂️
 

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You'll only see it if you have more than one window visible. You're doing work in some other program, you click on a cell in Excel, and all it does is make Excel in focus. Very very stupid.
 

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You'll see, the first click makes the PP Title Bar go dark, only then can I interact with the document!

2022-07-16_17-36-56.gif
 

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Actually, it only happens in PP and Excel, I can paste immediately into Word!
Must be an accidental paste safety feature! 🤷‍♂️
 

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No, Word does it aswell, I just tried it. I'm currently typing to you in a browser, Word is open over there. I click on "design" and the ribbon doesn't open, all that happens is Word goes into focus. Now I have to click again to open the ribbon.
 

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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.
 

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No, Word does it aswell...
Dayum! You're right!
The Beam Cursor will appear on first click, but, I must click again to paste! 🤷‍♂️
 

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... 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...
I can interact with any other program/app on first click except Office apps!
 

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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.

Why should I have to click twice? Go try it in non-MS programs, only one click is required.

Dayum! You're right!
The Beam Cursor will appear on first click, but, I must click again to paste! 🤷‍♂️

On the first click, the beam cursor[1] doesn't move. Try your first click in a different position. If you forget to click twice, pressing CTRL-V pastes it in the wrong place!

I assume you mean the caret? Oh wait, that's something else, I've always called it caret! What other names does that thing have? I've never heard "beam cursor".
 

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I have Edge open to its News, scrolling on it puts Firefox in the background. Both windows are not Maximized or Full Screen [Yes, those are different] but with Edge in focus I can carefully move the pointer over a portion of the Firfox window and scroll it but to get the focus back I have to then click the Firefox window or its Taskbar icon. The same happens if Lotus 1-2-3 is open or LibreOffice Writer is open with the browser in the back ground so it's not all a Microsoft issue, at least for me as it has always worked that way. And it works the same in Linux.
 

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    12GB
    Hard Drives
    256GB SSD NVMe
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Pro RTM x64
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    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Vostro 5890
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 10th Gen. 2.90GHz
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    16GB
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    24" Dell
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    512GB SSD NVMe, 2TB WDC HDD
    Browser
    Firefox, Edge
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender/Microsoft Security

Oh, caret was right! "This I-beam pointer is also known as the text selector/pointer, insertion cursor, vertical bar cursor, or caret."
14 Different Cursor Types with their Names and Pictures.

Another page said caret was ^ or "to the power of".

My favourite word is "octothorpe" - the hash, or in American, the "pound sign".

I have Edge open to its News, scrolling on it puts Firefox in the background. Both windows are not Maximized or Full Screen [Yes, those are different] but with Edge in focus I can carefully move the pointer over a portion of the Firfox window and scroll it but to get the focus back I have to then click the Firefox window or its Taskbar icon. The same happens if Lotus 1-2-3 is open or LibreOffice Writer is open with the browser in the back ground so it's not all a Microsoft issue, at least for me as it has always worked that way. And it works the same in Linux.

Edge seems different, that works correctly. I just clicked a link in it on a web page when Opera browser was in focus with me typing in here, and the link opened. Wordpad and MS Office won't do that.
 

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0002809.png
 

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    ASUS VivoBook
Odd, Word is even worse than Wordpad. I have duplicated what you just did. But both Wordpad and Word won't respond on the first click if you click a menu, or try to move the text cursor when they're not in focus.
 

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Anyway, it's strange!
I've never found a solution, except this, which is an annoying feature!!!...

0002810.png
 

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    ASUS VivoBook

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