MacOS behavior with focusing on multiple windows compared to Linux/Windows

[fathergll]

The link below (timestamped at 13:15) describes the behavior.

Does anyone know if there is any way to change/workarounds for the MacOS focus behavior when there are multiple windows open? As the video shows you have to click a window first before the window recognizes mouse events within the window.

Example; If you have two Chrome windows open;

If you are in one Chrome window and wanted to pause a pause a Youtube video playing in the other window, you have to click the other window first and then you can proceed to pause it whereas the behavior in other OS like Windows or Linux(Ubuntu for example) this is not the case and you can pause the video without clicking the window to activate it first.

Does anyone know workarounds around this? The best I have seen is also in this video at 35:36 where he says a tiling window manager like Yabai has a auto-focus windows on hover can work but there are situations where it's an issue using that. Does anyone know if there are any other workarounds to these that work better than Yabai?

 

[dotnet]

If you are in one Chrome window and wanted to pause a pause a Youtube video playing in the other window, you have to click the other window first and then you can proceed to pause it whereas the behavior in other OS like Windows or Linux(Ubuntu for example) this is not the case and you can pause the video without clicking the window to activate it first.

That may be the case with some Windows applications, but is far from consistent across the board. One of my perennial complaints about the Windows UI is the inconsistent click-through bevaviour.

In Linux (X11) the click-through behaviour is configurable in most window managers. Don’t ask me about details, it’s been many years since I‘ve used a GUI on a Linux box.

 

[arw]

This doesn't really help you but from my understanding, while scrolling (horizontally and vertically) works globally by simply placing the mouse pointer above an inactive window, click-through has to be implemented in the actual application itself.
The media player IINA for example has a dedicated option to "Accept first mouse click if not in focus" for video playback.
Perhaps it does so by making use of the 'acceptsFirstMouse' Event Handling:

acceptsFirstMouse(for:) | Apple Developer Documentation

Overridden by subclasses to return if the view should be sent a message for an initial mouse-down event, if not.

developer.apple.com

I did not find a similar setting for Chrome.
Not sure about Chrome but in Firefox/Safari my workaround is to ⌘+click the (hidden) play/pause button in the bottom left of a Youtube video. This registers in an inactive window.

 

[fathergll]

That may be the case with some Windows applications, but is far from consistent across the board. One of my perennial complaints about the Windows UI is the inconsistent click-through bevaviour.

Can you give a specific example? The behavior I am describing seems consistent across MacOS beyond Chrome/Safrai. Even a basic thing like a text app opened next to a libre office excel sheet or if you had Finder open. Every time I need to click the window first. I'm not seeing this on Windows at all. I don't see it on Ubuntu either but I don't use that as much.

 

[fathergll]

This doesn't really help you but from my understanding, while scrolling (horizontally and vertically) works globally by simply placing the mouse pointer above an inactive window, click-through has to be implemented in the actual application itself.
The media player IINA for example has a dedicated option to "Accept first mouse click if not in focus" for video playback.
Perhaps it does so by making use of the 'acceptsFirstMouse' Event Handling:

acceptsFirstMouse(for:) | Apple Developer Documentation

Overridden by subclasses to return if the view should be sent a message for an initial mouse-down event, if not.

developer.apple.com

I did not find a similar setting for Chrome.
Not sure about Chrome but in Firefox/Safari my workaround is to ⌘+click the (hidden) play/pause button in the bottom left of a Youtube video. This registers in an inactive window.

Good to know about the app specific settings.

I'm trying to see if there is anything else besides having to rely on keyboard shortcuts to initial the inactive window.

 

[MacGizmo]

There IS a small utility that does exactly what you want (making a window active simply by hovering the mouse over it) called AutoFocus. It brings auto-focus and auto-raise features to macOS.

 

[fathergll]

There IS a small utility that does exactly what you want (making a window active simply by hovering the mouse over it) called AutoFocus. It brings auto-focus and auto-raise features to macOS.

Bingo! exactly what I was looking for. I knew someone had to develop an app to change that behavior. Thanks.

 

[MacGizmo]

Bingo! exactly what I was looking for. I knew someone had to develop an app to change that behavior. Thanks.

I used to run this app, but I eventually got frustrated with the behavior and un-installed it. It's been a while, so when this topic came up I took a look at it again.

FYI: Unfortunately, there seems to be a nasty bug in the latest version that prevents the use of the app after you turn on Auto-Focus only in the preferences (it crashes the app and doesn't allow you to launch it again). If you're fine with Auto-Focus AND Auto-Raise (the default, I believe), then it's not a problem.