Mouse utilities: Focus follows Mouse (X-Mouse)

[cashell]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

When enabled, the focus for windows would follow the mouse pointer without requiring that a window be clicked on to enable focus. Simply hovering the mouse over a window would give that window the focus, allowing for keyboard entry without clicking or raising the window to the forefront.

Scenario when this would be used?

This has been a common and popular configuration for X Windows users for years. There are many scenarios where you want to be able to view one thing, while entering text into a partially obscured window. This is particularly useful on laptops or small screens where viewspace is limited. However, it is also very useful when you want to move the mouse over a window and scroll that window without clicking on it.

I've been using this functionality for years with various add-on and third-party tools (including TWeak UI in the old MS PowerToys).

Supporting information

This functionality was available in the original MS PowerToys Tweak UI component (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweak_UI), under the "X Mouse" functionality.

The best currently available tool that I know of to support this is Joel Purra's "X-Mouse Controls" (https://joelpurra.com/projects/X-Mouse_Controls/), which is an open source (GPL) utility also on GitHub: https://github.com/joelpurra/xmouse-controls

[similar-issues-ai[bot]]

We've found some similar issues:

• 15113 , similarity score: 84%

If any of the above are duplicates, please consider closing this issue out and adding additional context in the original issue.

Note: You can give me feedback by 👍 or 👎 this comment.

[cashell]

Ok, apparently I didn't do as thorough a job as I should have on searching for existing issues. I found a couple that look like they are at least related, if not duplicates:

• 74

• 33818

• 8959

• 25430

• 15113 (closed)

It might be worth consolidating some or all of these tickets!

[crutkas]

/dup https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/74

[microsoft-github-policy-service[bot]]

Hi! We've identified this issue as a duplicate of another one that already exists on this Issue Tracker. This specific instance is being closed in favor of tracking the concern over on the referenced thread. Thanks for your report!