For the non-nerd readers of this blog out there, here is a glimpse of what it’s like to be a nerd — we are going nuts over seemingly inconsequential issues that normal people don’t even realize exist!
In our first episode, Val Henson complained about having to pay $15 for focus-follows-mouse (which I blogged about here).
Today, Stevey rants about f-f-m too.
Two smart people complaining about an obscure feature that most people have never heard of. What the heck is it?
Thanks to Stevey, we have an explanation which he thoughtfully typed so I don’t have to:
Focus-follows-mouse means that when you move the mouse cursor, the window under the cursor gets the keyboard focus. But saying that confuses Mac people who all assume that “focused” is synonymous with “foreground”, because that’s the way it works on the Mac.
[...]
Flavor #1: autofocus — in this flavor, reminiscent perhaps of a sweet juicy mandarin orange, the window under the mouse gets the keyboard focus but does not come to the front. This allows you to interact with a partially-obscured window. [without having to click in that window! --ed]
[...]
Flavor #2: autoraise — in this pungent flavor, somewhat evocative of a slightly overripe Durian fruit left in the tropical sun for about nine hours, moving the mouse into a new window automatically brings that window to the front. In the especially horrible default configuration, it comes to the front instantly
[...]
Many programmers feel that autofocus is delicate butterfly and autoraise is a big, stinky buffalo. That’s just how they feel about it.
Go read the rest of his blog if you want to read someone who is much funnier and smarter than I am.
By the way, the piece of software that Val found earlier, called MondoMouse, for which she paid $15, implements the big, stinky buffalo version of ffm (according to their website), not the delicious mandarin orange version. Blech.