Ask HN: That "window focus" problem

1 point·jmtame··5 comments

Does anyone else find it annoying that you have to sometimes manually click on a web page in order to do things like create a new tab (ctrl/command+t)?

Is there an easy way around this that anyone discovered? Like a shortcut to "focus on the web page" in the browser?

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Simply Alt(Command)+Tabbing into a window should do the trick. Remember, in OS X, you can do Cmd+` to switch between windows of the application.

If your focus is already on, let's say, Firefox, you can hit tab a few times for the focus to land inside the browser rendering area and then your shortcuts should work just fine.

Yeah, the only way I can get it to work on a Mac is if I alt+tab twice.

For example, Flash does this on my PC. If I hit tab, it will cycle through the UI elements of a Flash video. On YouTube, if I click the "play" button, then tab, it will highlight various components of the Flash player. I can't open a new tab unless I alt+tab twice, or unless manually clicking on the window (somewhere in a non-flash area).

This isn't the case on Mac, but I find myself randomly losing focus of the browser window. Kind of weird.

On Mac, when that happens I usually press Command+L to focus the address bar then Command+T to make a new tab.

edit: Ctrl+L, Ctrl+T work on PC/*nix too iirc.

Ok, I figured that would probably be the best fix for now. Thanks

Click to focus is not (historically, at least) the only focus model nor necessarily even the best. It used to be the case that most environment used focus follows mouse. My personal preference for focus scheme is focus follows mouse, click to raise since raising the window under the mouse can get irritating.

If you use various linux window managers you get to customise your focus model.

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