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I just started using a Mac for work and this is pretty prevalent on Mac as well, possibly that is where it originated. Applications on Mac are a random assortme

I just started using a Mac for work and this is pretty prevalent on Mac as well, possibly that is where it originated. Applications on Mac are a random assortment of regular apps with proper titlebars and apps which effectively have no titlebar. Mac OS keyboard/mouse focus is also intensely weird and inconsistent. The rules for when a click brings a window into mouse and/or keyboard focus are basically unpredictable, as far as I can tell. When you click a window to focus it, some applications use that click to put the keyboard/mouse focus on the widget you clicked on. Others "eat" the click before bringing the window to the foreground. So if you want to activate a specific text field or whatever for keyboard focus, you have to click _twice_ every time you switch focus back to a particular app. But if you do that, you have to _space your clicks apart_ to prevent them from being interpreted as a double-click! Which might maximize the window if you clicked on the area that would otherwise have been the app's title bar! It also throws me off at least once an hour that you use can the mouse scroll wheel and all mouse buttons except 1 and 2 in a window _without_ bringing it into focus. After my work day is done, I am always so much happier to go back to Plasma for my personal stuff and hobbies.

red_admiral 2y ago
Joel Spolsky has an old post on this. Apparently, clicking in a window on the Mac brings that _process_ into the foreground, but not necessarily that window. If process A is in the foreground with window 1, and process B has windows 2 and 3 with 2 in front of 3, so the current window stacking order is 1,2,3 then the effect of clicking in window 3 is in fact to bring window 2 forwards, so the window stacking order is now 2,3,1. Widgets, toolbars and other floating things that are separate windows as far as the window manager is concerned can also affect this. For example, GIMP or other programs that have palettes need to enforce that "the palette is always in front of the main window", which I imagine is handled differently on the Mac to other OSes.

red_admiral 2y ago

Joel Spolsky has an old post on this. Apparently, clicking in a window on the Mac brings that _process_ into the foreground, but not necessarily that window. If process A is in the foreground with window 1, and process B has windows 2 and 3 with 2 in front of 3, so the current window stacking order is 1,2,3 then the effect of clicking in window 3 is in fact to bring window 2 forwards, so the window stacking order is now 2,3,1. Widgets, toolbars and other floating things that are separate windows as far as the window manager is concerned can also affect this. For example, GIMP or other programs that have palettes need to enforce that "the palette is always in front of the main window", which I imagine is handled differently on the Mac to other OSes.