Focus (computing)

The active or focused window is in graphical user interfaces where often several windows are displayed simultaneously on the screen, the one that receives keyboard input from the user, the rest is inactive. The method is in principle independent of the mechanism of maximizing and minimizing the window and generally refers only to the non- minimized windows - they are necessarily inactive.

Keystrokes should be forwarded only makes sense to a certain window (or represented by application program ). Supporting the selection and highlighting of the active window, for example by a different colored title bar of a window are task manager, which can also be integrated in the operating system.

The user can change the active window usually determined either from the keyboard or with the mouse: For keyboard control usually a key combination to cycle through all window exists (Alt Tab in Microsoft Windows, Ubuntu), for mouse control available window managers use different models to choose from:

• The window under the mouse cursor is active ( focus-follows -mouse, X - Mouse), or the window under the mouse pointer was last located, if it is over any window ( sloppy -focus ).
• The active window can be set by clicking in the window or on the title bar ("click - to-focus ").

In addition, you can also activate the windows that are minimized to the window ledge by them - depending on the setting or operation - clicks or moves only the mouse ( such as the drag and drop).

In addition, a window programmatically receive the focus, such as when it is generated by a program start, or as a pop -up window.

There are two models to deal with the active window:

• The active window is automatically in the foreground, thus covering all inactive windows (auto raise, possibly after a delay time to bring when moving the mouse does not all swept window to the front ).
• The active window remains where it is, the order of the transitions is not changed - a fully INDOOR window can no longer be found in this setting ( as implemented in AmigaOS ).

Active widget within windows

With most graphical user interfaces are windows, in particular dialog box, composed of widgets such as buttons or input fields. From these, can similar to windows, one to be focused to receive keyboard input. As can be normally focused in this way with the mouse to use widgets such as buttons or checkboxes and then operated for example with the space bar, and a use of the GUI without a mouse is possible.

Between the widgets the user can usually use the Tab key in a fixed order by the programmer (or Shift Tab for reverse order) switch or between windows using the mouse. The active widget is marked depending on the type of widget, such by framing the text of a button or a cursor in a text box.

• Graphical User Interface