Application Change Focus on Minimize

Question

Application Change Focus on Minimize

I hope somebody can enlighten me here.

Say I have two windows open, iTunes and Mail. If I'm working in iTunes, and minimize iTunes to reveal Mail behind it, the focus remains on iTunes, even though Mail is now the "front" window. If I want to minimize iTunes and quit Mail, after minimizing iTunes I have to click on the Mail window in order to get focus, then go to the menu to quit. In XP, the focus would switch to the front window.

Is there any way I can make the focus switch to whatever window is on top, or whatever window I mouse over? Intuitively, if I minimize a window, it means that I don't want to work with that application anymore... however OS X seems to disagree with that philosophy.

iMac G5 (ALS) | 17" | 1.8 GHz | 1GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.4.6), Motorola v551 | iPod 40GB

Posted on May 14, 2006 11:21 PM

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Answer 1

billpenn

Level 1

36 points

May 14, 2006 11:53 PM in response to CanWeBowlPlease

It is a matter framing what you are minimizing.

If you minimize the window with the yellow dealie, you are not doing something to the app, just the window. The app remains ready for a new window or command.

If you hide the app: via the application menu, or Command-H, you have told the application to go away, and the most recent prior application will be active.

The hide application behavior seems to be what you were expecting from minimizing your window.

The difference between Mac and Windows in this respect stems from the Mac's use of a fixed menu bar rather than a window attached menu bar. It is a little bit of a philosophical difference that boils down to: On Windows, a window runs an application. On Mac, an application runs a window. Think about that with a philosophical point of view, and it will make sense.

--Bill

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Answer 2

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

May 14, 2006 11:46 PM in response to CanWeBowlPlease

On my machine, minimizing doesn't bring any other application's window to the front, it just minimizes the frontmost apps window. You have to click into an apps window to make it the frontmost or click on its dock icon. Also, there's no need to quit an app using the menu bar. You can use CMD+Q or click on its dock icon and select quit.

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Answer 3

May 14, 2006 11:47 PM in response to baltwo

Right - that's my point. If I minimize iTunes to reveal Mail and hit Cmd-Q then it will quit iTunes even though I'm looking at Mail. 'Focus' remains on iTunes, I don't want that.

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Answer 4

May 15, 2006 12:03 AM in response to billpenn

Thanks, Bill. I should probably get used to Cmd-H instead of minimizing!

Green star for you.

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Answer 5

Aug 1, 2006 12:24 PM in response to CanWeBowlPlease

Show Desktop is awesome when you quickly want to hide all applications except the finder — all with a single click.

http://www.everydaysoftware.net/showdesktop/index.html

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