To open one or several files in a specific application i often select the file(s) in explorer and drag them to the target application.
My next step is always to perform some action on the recently opened file in the application dragged to, e.g. to perform a search in a text file opened in a text editor.
But the focus is still on the explorer window where the files were dragged from, so my actions are performed in the wrong window, e.g. pressing Ctrl+F launches a search in explorer instead of in the text editor.
This might sound like a small problem, but I perform this task tens, if not hundreds, of times per day, and can't seem to learn this unintuitive behavior!
Is there any way to modify this behavior? Perhaps with some AutoHotKey magic? Or some registry modifications?
Best Answer
Windows does not have a feature for "Focus follows drop", but does have a feature for "Focus Follows Mouse" : When the mouse hovers over a window, it becomes the active window as far as the keyboard is concerned and is brought to the front of all other windows.
Under XP this feature is enabled using TweakUI.
In newer versions of Windows, this is built-into the Ease of Access Center ("Make the mouse easier to use" / "Activate a window by hovering over it with the mouse"). The excellent and free X-Mouse Controls can add a delay to the activation.