MacOS – Prevent window autoselect on application launch

applicationskeyboardmacos

When I am typing in an application (say Terminal), and I want to google something, I open Safari. While safari opens and loads tabs and whatnot, I want to keep typing in terminal to get work done. However, after about a second the Safari window gets automatically selected, and whatever I am in the middle of typing suddenly gets input into safari instead.

So I deal with it and click back on Terminal to keep typing. After another second, Safari reselects itself, and I have the same problem. I click back to Terminal, and it happens a third time.

It's extremely annoying, and can be hazardous, for instance when an alert pops up in the newly launched application and I just happen to hit Enter on my keyboard (expecting it to be input into Terminal), causing the alert to instantly disappear after it pops up, potentially doing unwanted actions on my computer.

I don't know if it happens three times with Safari (it was just an example), but I know it has happened at least three times before with a single application launch.

Is there any way to turn off this feature?

Best Answer

As far as I'm aware, there is no ideal solution, unless you're willing to disable SIP (maybe).

I think your best bet may be the bash command open:

Bash:

open -ga "Google Chrome"

Applescript:

do shell script "open -ga 'Google Chrome' "

These will open the specificed appliction without stealing focus

The application names are case sensitive

If I only needed this while using terminal, I'd perhaps use aText to expand open chrome to the above command and so on... Not that it's much shorter, but I'd prefer that.

You can use third party applications to launch apps and scripts:

Alfred, Launchbar, FastScripts, Apptivate etc... there are tons of apps that do this.

You could also make an Application using Automator.app, that just runs the terminal command and you can add that app to the dock. This has it's own problems though, because the actual application icon will show up in the Dock as soon as you click your custom Dock icon and now you got two icons for the same app in the dock... oh well.

As a side note, you can also open a specific website:

Bash:

open -ga "Google Chrome" "http://askdifferent.com"

Applescript:

do shell script "open -ga 'Google Chrome' 'http://askdifferent.com' "

In other applications you can open a file by replacing the url with a path to a file.

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MacOS – Why does spaces keep capturing keyboard input some times after switching spaces

I find that killing the Dock only sometimes makes the problem go away. Usually keyboard input returns, but if I switch spaces using the keyboard shortcuts, the visualisation sticks around & keyboard input is stolen again.

What I have found to work is putting the display to sleep. I've had the bottom right corner of the screen set to do that for ages, so it's quite convenient for me. I've never had this method fail; once the screen is awoken, the problem is gone & doesn't return when I switch spaces again.

To me this suggests that the problem isn't actually in Dock, it's in the system's EventTap subsystem, the bit that lets stuff like Spaces, Screen Sharing, LaunchBar, & Spotlight take keystrokes before the focussed application gets them. I've actually experienced a similar problem with Screen Sharing, where the system whose screen is being shared gets its keyboard input mangled if a modifier key is pressed on the viewing computer & not released until Screen Sharing has lost focus. It's sort of the reverse problem, but it indicates that perhaps the Spaces problem is the EventTap framework getting stuck in a similar way, never sending the message that Control isn't being held down any more.

MacOS – Keyboard shortcut for jumping directly to a specific input method

One option would be to download changeInput and assign shortcuts to shell commands like changeInput U.S..

You could also use KeyRemap4MacBook:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<root>
  <vkchangeinputsourcedef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_HIRAGANA</name>
    <inputsourceid_equal>com.apple.inputmethod.Kotoeri.Japanese</inputsourceid_equal>
  </vkchangeinputsourcedef>
  <vkchangeinputsourcedef>
    <name>KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_KATAKANA</name>
    <inputsourceid_equal>com.apple.inputmethod.Kotoeri.Japanese.Katakana</inputsourceid_equal>
  </vkchangeinputsourcedef>
  <item>
    <name>change_inputsources</name>
    <identifier>change_inputsources</identifier>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::E, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_ENGLISH</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::H, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_HIRAGANA</autogen>
    <autogen>__KeyToKey__ KeyCode::K, VK_CONTROL | VK_OPTION | VK_COMMAND | ModifierFlag::NONE, KeyCode::VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_KATAKANA</autogen>
  </item>
</root>

See the private.xml documentation.

VK_CHANGE_INPUTSOURCE_ENGLISH is defined in vkchangeinputsourcedef.xml. You can see the IDs of input sources from EventViewer.app. Without | ModifierFlag::NONE for example the first setting would also apply to control-option-shift-command-E. See the source for the key code values and predefined settings.

Best Answer

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