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Topic: «Make Window with Focus Obvious , with 4 monitors, I often start typing in wrong window » on forum: Technical Support   Views: 4471
 
cliff neville
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 51
Joined: 05/30/2012
Posted: 08/01/2012 13:06:24
 
 
 I'm a paid user of AWM.

I searched a bit and found this fr om 3 years ago:
http://www.actualtools.com/forum/read.php?FID=11&TID=728&MID=3220&sphrase_id=61327#message3220
which applies.

After getting a great improvement on Windows 7 with AWM for my 4 monitors, I now find that I am often typing in the wrong window      .  In other words, maybe the mouse is over my training video (monitor 1) and I hit the space bar to start playing and instead I've just marked an email as 'read' (monitor 3), and I then remember that I just clicked over to check email and forgot to click back.  

Or I'll think I'm going to type something into MS Word and I start getting "invalid command" off my router (in Putty).  Ouch!!!!!  Dangerous!!!!!  I haven't had a catastrophe yet, but I could see the possibility.  

I completely love having multiple monitors, I could never go back to having just one, and a product like AWM greatly enhances the multiple monitor experience, but now this problem I've just described is the sore thumb of the experience.  I now have to make certain I click on the window I am intending to send keystrokes to or I never can be sure where the keystrokes will go.  And this is a bit stressful and extra work I don't need to do with just one monitor.  

I tried the transparency thing, but like the guy 3 years ago said, it just shows a jumbled mess.  So, it's not a satisfactory solution for this.  

I guess there are several ways to approach this, and maybe you have added some feature already that can solve this issue ....

INDICATE FOCUS

Mark the window with focus somehow -- for example, simply put an amber border around the window with focus.  Full screen windows would also need the border.  Or even just highlighting the taskbar somehow? ... most of my windows are maximized anyway, so at least I would know I'm on the right monitor, and if you are looking at just one monitor it's pretty easy to figure out which window has focus.  

1. highlight border of window
2. highlight taskbar on focus monitor

INDICATE NON-FOCUS

Mark the windows without focus somehow -- I had the same idea as the other guy, dim the other windows like the UAC pop-up does.  That however seems to put huge load on the CPU.  So what about like a dim gray "X" over the non-focused windows?  

3. dim non-focused windows
4. some symbol over non-focused

MOUSE INDICATOR

While not perfect, if I could tell by the mouse if the window under the mouse is the focused window, that might help a lot.  

5. mouse pointer

TASKBAR ICON INDICATOR

A bright border around the icon on the taskbar might do the trick also.  

6. taskbar icon

MY FAVORITE SOLUTION

Can you make the window with focus cause the taskbar on that monitor to have a blue or orange glow, so I would know at least I'm looking at the correct monitor?  And for full-screen windows, add a blue glow at the bottom of the screen so full-screen windows are are also included?   While I think this should be easy for your taskbars, I'm not sure if you can modify or add to the Win7 taskbar.  Can you add something below the Win7 taskbar, between the Win7 taskbar and the edge of the screen?  Can you modify the color of the Win7 taskbar?  

I think that would be enough, and highly helpful, and dependable -- if the taskbar made it obvious which monitor has the window with focus, if the taskbar was obviously marked ... so I could glance down before typing (or even just see it with my peripheral vision), and make sure the taskbar is orange or blue or somehow indicated.  

Thank you
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4010
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 08/02/2012 01:55:48
 
 
 Hello Cliff.

Thanks for such detailed description.

We'll consider your request and think over how it should be implemented. For now highlighting of the taskbar seems to be the most suitable solution.

BTW there's no need to modify the system taskbar, you can always replace it with our program's one.

Best regards.
 
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cliff neville
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 51
Joined: 05/30/2012
Posted: 08/02/2012 03:57:07
 
 
 Thanks.  In thinking about it more ... I think what usually tricks me is seeing the mouse pointer over the window I expect to type into, when in fact it's not the window under the mouse that actually has the focus.  Did I see somewhere in AWM something like
"give the window under the mouse the focus"?  I can't find it now.

I think forcing the window under the cursor to have focus might be a solution, too.  That might be even better because I wouldn't even have to click at all -- if the mouse is over the text box, my typing will go to that text box.  Although I have fears that this might cause bad interactions with other windows in some cases.  This might be the best solution, but it comes with a risk that is might have some deal-breaker side-effect.  

The orange taskbar is probably just as good, and I don't see any risk of side-effects with that.  

That's great that you can just replace the system taskbar with the AWM taskbar.  So, no problems there, I guess.  

Thanks for looking into this.
 
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Bogdan Polishchuk
Administrator
 
 Posts: 4010
Joined: 04/04/2012
Posted: 08/03/2012 00:24:41
 
 
 Unfortunately, for now there is no such feature in AWM.

Ok, we'll consider this too.

Best.
 
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cliff neville
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 51
Joined: 05/30/2012
Posted: 08/06/2012 01:21:58
 
 
 Hey, this might be the easiest thing: if the mouse cursor is *NOT over the window with focus, make the mouse cursor a different color or shape, or put a yellow hazy disk under it, or red circle around it, or something.  But don't make the pointer harder to find, it's already hard enough.  Maybe make it a different pointer, and like maybe red.  Yeah, that would do it.  Or make the out-of-focus pointer color or shape selectable.  

Come to think if it, that's how I fixed basically the same problem on my VMs 5 years ago when I had only one monitor.  I set the mouse pointer in the VMs to be gold and the one on the host PC to be white.  Yeah, that worked really well.  I could tell where my typing would go all the time.  It was great.  

This might be the easiest for you guys to program, and I think it's as good as the highlighted taskbar, in fact it might even be better.  I don't see any great risk of interaction side-effects either.  

Thanks you
 
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Vasiliy Ivachev
Administrator
-retired-
 
 Posts: 2073
Joined: 11/09/2010
Posted: 01/23/2014 18:12:24
 
 
 Hello Cliff,

Quote
I think forcing the window under the cursor to have focus might be a solution, too. That might be even better because I wouldn't even have to click at all -- if the mouse is over the text box, my typing will go to that text box.
- This feature has been implemented in the current 8.1 version of Actual Window Manager (download link - http://actualtools.com/files/aimsetup.exe ).
Actual Window Manager -> Mouse -> Options -> Activate window on mouse hover.
 
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