Changing focus in Windows 7 Explorer.

[Peter Jason]

Is there any way to have the focus automatically follow the pointer
when using Windows 7 Explorer? It would really speed things up. I
have already checked out the "intellimouse" in Control Panel but with
no luck.

Peter

 

[Chet]

Is there any way to have the focus automatically follow the pointer
when using Windows 7 Explorer? It would really speed things up. I
have already checked out the "intellimouse" in Control Panel but with
no luck.

Peter

In Folder Options, General tab, under Click items as follows, you
might try the "Single-click to open an item (point to select)
option." However, this will be a global change and not just for
Windows Explorer.

hth

 

[VanguardLH]

Is there any way to have the focus automatically follow the pointer
when using Windows 7 Explorer? It would really speed things up. I
have already checked out the "intellimouse" in Control Panel but with
no luck.

From what I see using TweakUI (under Windows XP since it's not usable
under Windows 7), its xmouse setting changes the following registry key:

Key: HKU/<yourSID>\Control Panel\Desktop
Data item: UserPreferencesMask

Alas, it's a binary value and I don't know which bit affects the xmouse
behavior. Found some info here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc957204.aspx

Good luck trying to get to any less-than-max-sized windows if you have a
max-sized window. That is, if you have normally sized windows
(something less than full screen) but there's one that is maximum sized
(not fullscreen but just occupies the entire screen minus the taskbar),
how are you going to get your mouse from the taskbar to one of the
smaller windows? Your mouse pointer will move from the taskbar and hit
the max-sized window first and give it focus. That means the smaller
windows will hide behind the max-sized windows. The smaller windows
will be behind the max window so you cannot move your cursor over the
smaller windows to give focus to them. You could try to hit Alt+Tab to
give focus to a smaller window but the instant you move the mouse
pointer that is still in the max window then the max window gets focus
and the small window disappears underneath.

Xmouse can be handy but it also can get in the way. It depends on how
you arrange your windows.

After entering the above, I happened upon:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ing-the-mouse-over-a-window-in-windows-vista/

It doesn't give you an option to decide on the auto-raise delay so
whatever is the default is what you get. All of this is to
automatically change focus to a *window*. You don't explain how you
want focus changed *within* a window (Windows Explorer). Presumably you
already gave focus to the window since you're using it. No matter where
you move the mouse within Windows Explorer, whatever you click on gets
immediate "focus" (you select an action and it happens). The window
already has focus. Please explain what you want.

 

[Peter Jason]

From what I see using TweakUI (under Windows XP since it's not usable
under Windows 7), its xmouse setting changes the following registry key:

Key: HKU/<yourSID>\Control Panel\Desktop
Data item: UserPreferencesMask

Alas, it's a binary value and I don't know which bit affects the xmouse
behavior. Found some info here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc957204.aspx

Good luck trying to get to any less-than-max-sized windows if you have a
max-sized window. That is, if you have normally sized windows
(something less than full screen) but there's one that is maximum sized
(not fullscreen but just occupies the entire screen minus the taskbar),
how are you going to get your mouse from the taskbar to one of the
smaller windows? Your mouse pointer will move from the taskbar and hit
the max-sized window first and give it focus. That means the smaller
windows will hide behind the max-sized windows. The smaller windows
will be behind the max window so you cannot move your cursor over the
smaller windows to give focus to them. You could try to hit Alt+Tab to
give focus to a smaller window but the instant you move the mouse
pointer that is still in the max window then the max window gets focus
and the small window disappears underneath.

Xmouse can be handy but it also can get in the way. It depends on how
you arrange your windows.

After entering the above, I happened upon:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ing-the-mouse-over-a-window-in-windows-vista/

It doesn't give you an option to decide on the auto-raise delay so
whatever is the default is what you get. All of this is to
automatically change focus to a *window*. You don't explain how you
want focus changed *within* a window (Windows Explorer). Presumably you
already gave focus to the window since you're using it. No matter where
you move the mouse within Windows Explorer, whatever you click on gets
immediate "focus" (you select an action and it happens). The window
already has focus. Please explain what you want.

Thanks. I use the Windows Explorer for sorting images into
categories. On the right side of explorer are the images and in the
left pane are the folders. I select the desired images in the right
pane and drag/drop them into the folder of choice. This moves the
focus to the LHS. Then when I return to the right pane and twirl the
mouse button this will not work because of focus loss. Though it is
simple enough to click to focus this is annoying when working rapidly.
Peter

 

[VanguardLH]

Thanks. I use the Windows Explorer for sorting images into
categories. On the right side of explorer are the images and in the
left pane are the folders. I select the desired images in the right
pane and drag/drop them into the folder of choice. This moves the
focus to the LHS. Then when I return to the right pane and twirl the
mouse button this will not work because of focus loss. Though it is
simple enough to click to focus this is annoying when working rapidly.
Peter

I can only suggest at this point that you change your behavior. Instead
of picking some files to copy (by dragging) into another folder that you
select ALL of them (using Ctrl or Shift keys with mouse click) and then
copy them ALL.

You might have to find a 3rd party file manager to do what you want that
incorporates something akin to Javascript's events that support
onmouseover.

 

[Peter Jason]

I can only suggest at this point that you change your behavior. Instead
of picking some files to copy (by dragging) into another folder that you
select ALL of them (using Ctrl or Shift keys with mouse click) and then
copy them ALL.

You might have to find a 3rd party file manager to do what you want that
incorporates something akin to Javascript's events that support
onmouseover.

Thanks. I'm also having trouble with the cut/paste of images in
Windows Explorer. In XP I could select a batch of several images
with the Ctrl-Click then cut and then paste the images back into the
same folder but in a different place defined by the cursor. With
Windows7 these images are pasted back into the same position. Is
there some registry adjustment to fix this? I would be happy to just
get back all the image handling that XP had.

 

[choro]

Thanks. I'm also having trouble with the cut/paste of images in
Windows Explorer. In XP I could select a batch of several images
with the Ctrl-Click then cut and then paste the images back into the
same folder but in a different place defined by the cursor. With
Windows7 these images are pasted back into the same position. Is
there some registry adjustment to fix this? I would be happy to just
get back all the image handling that XP had.

Why on earth would you want to cutting and pasting images into the very
same folder "but in a different position" since there ARE not positions.
You can reorder the positions by name, by type, by several types of date
such as original date, date modified, date accessed, as well as by file
size, pixel size etc etc. Shall I go on? You obviously need a lesson in
how to list or show your image files on Windows 7. You can do this more
or less with any other folder containing documents etc.

In any case you can still CTRL select your user files including image
files in any order you wish in Windows 7 also. Or select a file, press
SHIFT and then go to select any other file using Windows Explorer in
which case you will automatically also select ALL the files in between.
And then you can do bugger them all or anything else that you might want
to do with them.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Thanks. I'm also having trouble with the cut/paste of images in
Windows Explorer. In XP I could select a batch of several images
with the Ctrl-Click then cut and then paste the images back into the
same folder but in a different place defined by the cursor. With
Windows7 these images are pasted back into the same position. Is
there some registry adjustment to fix this? I would be happy to just
get back all the image handling that XP had.

There was a thread a while ago about this, and I think you might have
been the OP.

What you[1] don't realize, and didn't realize in spite of various posts
trying to help you, is that all that was changing in XP was the display
or the view, i.e., in effect, the sorting.

[1] By "you" I mean the OP in that previous thread, whoever that was.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Why on earth would you want to cutting and pasting images into the very
same folder "but in a different position" since there ARE not positions.
You can reorder the positions by name, by type, by several types of date
such as original date, date modified, date accessed, as well as by file
size, pixel size etc etc. Shall I go on? You obviously need a lesson in
how to list or show your image files on Windows 7. You can do this more
or less with any other folder containing documents etc.

In any case you can still CTRL select your user files including image
files in any order you wish in Windows 7 also. Or select a file, press
SHIFT and then go to select any other file using Windows Explorer in
which case you will automatically also select ALL the files in between.
And then you can do bugger them all or anything else that you might want
to do with them.

Also see my reply, which I posted after you posted yours, but before I
saw yours

This newsreader (Dialog) doesn't refresh headers automatically, although
I've been told there is a way using scripting to refresh all groups,
including the ones I don't want to refresh

 

[VanguardLH]

Thanks. I'm also having trouble with the cut/paste of images in
Windows Explorer. In XP I could select a batch of several images
with the Ctrl-Click then cut and then paste the images back into the
same folder but in a different place defined by the cursor. With
Windows7 these images are pasted back into the same position. Is
there some registry adjustment to fix this? I would be happy to just
get back all the image handling that XP had.

Sorry, in my prior reply, I meant "you can copy ALL of those you want",
not that you had to copy all files and then delete the ones you didn't
want in the destination folder. The Ctrl and Shift combo with mouse
clicks still works the same as before.

I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish by selecting some files
and then copying into "a different placed defined by the cursor". Are
you asking how to make "<file>_Copy" files (copies of them within the
same folder as where they were selected) or did the "place defined by
the cursor" mean dropping them into another folder over which the mouse
was hovering at the moment you released the mouse button? I'm not sure
what you think is missing in Windows 7 regarding "image handling"
(which, so far, has been file management) that was in Windows XP.
Windows XP never had the onmouseover feature to auto-select a pane
inside of Windows Explorer. The Xmouse function (a registry hack) works
only for auto-focus on window objects, not on frames or panes within a
window.

I'm not a programmer but do recall using WinRunner several years ago. I
could even write in its macro language (raw mode) instead of just have
it record my mouse nagivation and keystrokes. I remember that I could
change focus using the window title or by the object ID assigned to the
window when it got opened. I don't recall that I had a function to
identify a frame or pane within the window (other than for HTML pages).
So it could be a limitation on not having an object ID on which to
identify frames or panes within a window. Someone in a win32 API
programming group might be able to elucidate.

I think there was something in AutoHotkey that let you emulate the
onmouseover event to change focus to an object type within a window.
However, that probably requires defining the sensitive area (which
probably requires relative positioning since the Windows Explorer window
could be anywhere in the screen and querying screen size along with
determining the size of a pane) where AutoHotkey would perform its own
single-click (on a blank area of the pane) or issue a hotkey for the
application (if available) to change focus to another pane. I've seen
posts from AutoHotkey's forums where users discuss how to perform an
equivalent of the Javascript onmouseover event.

You're trying to use other software to compensate for a feature that
doesn't currently exist within the application. That's why I mention
that maybe a 3rd party file manager might do what you want. You could
ask over in the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup (but get ready to ignore a
lot of noise and bitch posts over there).

 

[Peter Jason]

Why on earth would you want to cutting and pasting images into the very
same folder "but in a different position" since there ARE not positions.
You can reorder the positions by name, by type, by several types of date
such as original date, date modified, date accessed, as well as by file
size, pixel size etc etc. Shall I go on? You obviously need a lesson in
how to list or show your image files on Windows 7. You can do this more
or less with any other folder containing documents etc.

...* sniff *

Let me explain by example; simply:
I go to a blog that contains a plurality of images without any EXIF
data. I could download them one by one, but in Firefox6 all I have to
do is go to the File|Save Page As|as so collect the lot. Then I go
to the destination folder and sort them by
colour/blackwhite/approximate etc. Such a site with images is:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
and
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/
etc..
Some of Explorer's is useful such as Size & Dimensions, but old
photos, even up to the 1990s have no EXIF data at all.

This is why I need the select|cut|paste|group to effect a sort of
"bubble sort" as I go along. Anyway it works for me.

 

[Peter Jason]

Sorry, in my prior reply, I meant "you can copy ALL of those you want",
not that you had to copy all files and then delete the ones you didn't
want in the destination folder. The Ctrl and Shift combo with mouse
clicks still works the same as before.

I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish by selecting some files
and then copying into "a different placed defined by the cursor". Are
you asking how to make "<file>_Copy" files (copies of them within the
same folder as where they were selected) or did the "place defined by
the cursor" mean dropping them into another folder over which the mouse
was hovering at the moment you released the mouse button? I'm not sure
what you think is missing in Windows 7 regarding "image handling"
(which, so far, has been file management) that was in Windows XP.
Windows XP never had the onmouseover feature to auto-select a pane
inside of Windows Explorer. The Xmouse function (a registry hack) works
only for auto-focus on window objects, not on frames or panes within a
window.

I'm not a programmer but do recall using WinRunner several years ago. I
could even write in its macro language (raw mode) instead of just have
it record my mouse nagivation and keystrokes. I remember that I could
change focus using the window title or by the object ID assigned to the
window when it got opened. I don't recall that I had a function to
identify a frame or pane within the window (other than for HTML pages).
So it could be a limitation on not having an object ID on which to
identify frames or panes within a window. Someone in a win32 API
programming group might be able to elucidate.

I think there was something in AutoHotkey that let you emulate the
onmouseover event to change focus to an object type within a window.
However, that probably requires defining the sensitive area (which
probably requires relative positioning since the Windows Explorer window
could be anywhere in the screen and querying screen size along with
determining the size of a pane) where AutoHotkey would perform its own
single-click (on a blank area of the pane) or issue a hotkey for the
application (if available) to change focus to another pane. I've seen
posts from AutoHotkey's forums where users discuss how to perform an
equivalent of the Javascript onmouseover event.

You're trying to use other software to compensate for a feature that
doesn't currently exist within the application. That's why I mention
that maybe a 3rd party file manager might do what you want. You could
ask over in the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup (but get ready to ignore a
lot of noise and bitch posts over there).

I'll go hunting for some ex-Window application and report back when I
find it.

 

[Rodney Pont]

Thanks. I'm also having trouble with the cut/paste of images in
Windows Explorer. In XP I could select a batch of several images
with the Ctrl-Click then cut and then paste the images back into the
same folder but in a different place defined by the cursor. With
Windows7 these images are pasted back into the same position. Is
there some registry adjustment to fix this? I would be happy to just
get back all the image handling that XP had.

If I've got this right with:

XP when you paste something into a folder it puts it onto the end ,or
at the cursor position. It didn't resort until you closed and reopened
the folder.

Windows 7 sorts after you do the paste so they don't stay where you put
them.

If that's what's happening someone may have a suggestion as to how to
turn the immediate sort off. Would sorting on date modified make the
newest pasted item appear at the bottom always?

 

[VanguardLH]

This newsreader (Dialog) doesn't refresh headers automatically, although
I've been told there is a way using scripting to refresh all groups,
including the ones I don't want to refresh

There is a timer you can put in a script that associated with an event
in Dialog to do the auto-refresh at preset intervals. However, ask that
over in the news.software.newsreaders group.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

There is a timer you can put in a script that associated with an event
in Dialog to do the auto-refresh at preset intervals. However, ask that
over in the news.software.newsreaders group.

That's where I learned about the script - but as I implied, it isn't
quite what I want, so instead I rely on my manual skills

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

...* sniff *

Let me explain by example; simply:
I go to a blog that contains a plurality of images without any EXIF
data. I could download them one by one, but in Firefox6 all I have to
do is go to the File|Save Page As|as so collect the lot. Then I go
to the destination folder and sort them by
colour/blackwhite/approximate etc. Such a site with images is:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
and
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/
etc..
Some of Explorer's is useful such as Size & Dimensions, but old
photos, even up to the 1990s have no EXIF data at all.

This is why I need the select|cut|paste|group to effect a sort of
"bubble sort" as I go along. Anyway it works for me.

Put the directory into a text file and edit it as you like, then work
from it.

As an example to get such a file, in a cmd window, enter the command
dir > picture_list.txt

You can put the usual parameters in the dir command before the >

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I'm not a programmer but do recall using WinRunner several years ago. I
could even write in its macro language (raw mode) instead of just have
it record my mouse nagivation and keystrokes.

One might then say that indeed you are a programmer

Maybe not a professional, or familiar with a lot of languages, but hey,
every little bit counts.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Put the directory into a text file and edit it as you like, then work
from it.

As an example to get such a file, in a cmd window, enter the command
dir > picture_list.txt

You can put the usual parameters in the dir command before the >

I left out the obvious, I guess

Once in the command window, before running the above command, change
directory to where you want to do the above task.

BTW, there are apps to do that, but I know nothing about them, since the
above method serves my needs when I need to do it (about once in three
or four years!).

 

[Peter Jason]

Why on earth would you want to cutting and pasting images into the very
same folder "but in a different position" since there ARE not positions.
You can reorder the positions by name, by type, by several types of date
such as original date, date modified, date accessed, as well as by file
size, pixel size etc etc. Shall I go on? You obviously need a lesson in
how to list or show your image files on Windows 7. You can do this more
or less with any other folder containing documents etc.

In any case you can still CTRL select your user files including image
files in any order you wish in Windows 7 also. Or select a file, press
SHIFT and then go to select any other file using Windows Explorer in
which case you will automatically also select ALL the files in between.
And then you can do bugger them all or anything else that you might want
to do with them.

I haven't found a solution yet. For an example of what I need go to
Outlook10 and observe how the pane is always in focus with regards to
the pointer.

 

[Char Jackson]

I haven't found a solution yet. For an example of what I need go to
Outlook10 and observe how the pane is always in focus with regards to
the pointer.

I don't think there's a general purpose solution that does what you
want. Outlook is coded the way it is, but other programs aren't coded
with that specific capability in mind, and AFAIK it's not a general
Windows capability.