449951 - When holding Cmd, dragging a link out of a background window fails if a different link is focused

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Core :: Widget: Cocoa, defect, P3)

Description

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

On Mac OS X when holding the Cmd key, you can operate a background window with the mouse as if it was a foreground window - without activating it.

Dragging links out of background windows also works that way, unless another link is focused.

Steps to reproduce:
 1. Open a Firefox window and load google.com.
 2. Click on the desktop to deactivate the window.
 3. Press and hold the Cmd key.
 4. Drag the "Images" link a little to the right and notice that it works.
    Now the "Images" link is focused.
 5. Still holding Cmd, try to drag the "Maps" link.

Actual results:
The "Maps" link only gets focused, the drag operation fails.

Expected results:
Dragging the "Maps" link should work.

Comment 1

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

I've confirmed what you report, both on OS X 10.5.4 and 10.4.11.

> On Mac OS X when holding the Cmd key, you can operate a background
> window with the mouse as if it was a foreground window - without
> activating it.

Groan ... I didn't know this :-(

But (luckily) most of the Cmd-drag operations on a non-focused Firefox
window seem to work anyway -- for example Cmd-dragging a scrollbar.

Note that this stuff mostly only works with Cocoa apps.  You can
cmd-click on a Carbon app's window's titlebar (and drag it around)
without focusing the app (or the window).  But cmd-clicking anywere
else in a Carbon app's window immediately focuses it.

Comment 2

[Steven Michaud [:smichaud] (Retired)]

I'm assigning this bug to myself, because it's the kind of crazy
low-level widgets bug that I normally work on.

But if you think you can come with a way to fix this, Markus, feel
free to grab it yourself :-)

I've got plenty of other bugs to work on.

Comment 3

[Markus Stange [:mstange]]

This seems to work now. Maybe it was fixed by the focus refactoring.