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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus Apps
I wanted to share an interesting behavior of Preview that I noticed the other day. If you use a mouse with a scrollwheel, the result of using the wheel will differ based on which window the mouse is hovering over.

Specifically, I have opened a PDF file with enough pages to create an active scroll bar in the drawer. If the drawer list has input focus (blue outline) and the mouse is over the drawer, then the scrollwheel will cause the page list scrollbar to scroll. However, if I mouse the mouse over the main document window, then using the scrollwheel will scroll which page of the document is being shown!

My impression is that it's rare for applications to change input behaviors just by moving the mouse to different areas of a window; usually the user must click the mouse to change focus, then the behavior changes.
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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: chabig on Oct 23, '07 07:48:45AM

All windows will behave this way in Leopard.



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: barryjaylevine on Oct 23, '07 08:00:21AM

All my apps work this way in Tiger with the scroll wheel on my Wacom tablet. I don't use a mouse so I can't tell if this is an Apple or Wacom "thing".

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Two things in this world aren't overrated: Macintosh and Lemon Meringue Pie.



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: boredzo on Oct 23, '07 08:16:33AM

My impression is that it's rare for applications to change input behaviors just by moving the mouse to different areas of a window; usually the user must click the mouse to change focus, then the behavior changes.

Not true at all. Almost all applications on the Mac work this way.



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: ecovelli on Oct 23, '07 08:20:34AM

This is normal behavior for the Mac. It isn't even window specific. If you have a text box embedded in a web page, the scroll will scroll the entire page or the text box based upon what the mouse is over.



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: poenn on Oct 23, '07 08:42:05AM

This is normal behaviour in OS X for a long time, so not worth a "hint" in my opinion. In other operating systems (like Win XP) you have to click in the area that you wish to scroll through...



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: johngoldfinger on Oct 23, '07 09:45:03AM

Whoops, sorry for wasting everyone's time. I should have done a little more research before posting. Having come to OSX from Linux, using a window manager where focus followed my mouse, I just got into the habit of thinking I needed to click first in OSX to get focus. I was surprised when I saw that behavior yesterday and I wanted to share it with the world! My bad.



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: Nem on Oct 23, '07 01:10:33PM

Yes - but why?

The answer is because the scroll wheel causes mouse "button" events. You wouldn't expect your left or right click to occur within the focused window if your mouse is off to the side, would you? No - you would expect it to occur right under the mouse cursor. The scroll wheel is the same thing (usually the scroll wheel create "Button4" and "Button5" mouse events).

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Nem W. Schlecht
http://geekmuse.net/



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: asmeurer on Oct 23, '07 05:52:57PM

This is the case in any Application that has more than one scrollable area such as Preview or Safari (with frames). However, as the previous poster noted, in Leopard, this will occur also between Applications, regardless which one is open. I think this is the way Windows works, but I am not certain because the few times that I use Windows I have the front program maximized.



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Documents in Preview scroll based on mouse focus
Authored by: bigkm on Oct 24, '07 03:42:57AM

this is the first thing i notice when i have to use a M$ OS, then go scurrying back to my mac



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