[ferret_users] Mac user hint: Start Ferret plot window but keep focus in the original Terminal window

[William Kessler - NOAA Federal <william.s.kessler@xxxxxxxx>]

For Mac Ferret users:

If you run Ferret from Mac Terminal, opening a Ferret plot window by default puts the focus in that plot window, which is X11, not Terminal. There is no reason to have focus in the plot window, and to type subsequent commands requires first clicking the cursor in the Terminal window, a minor but frequent annoyance.

This behavior can be easily controlled:

From the X11 pulldown menu:

Preferences => Windows

Unclick the default "Focus on new windows"

No need to restart anything. Now opening a plot window will leave the focus in the original Terminal window for typing.

For completeness, this adds the following text to the file

~/Library/org.x.X11.plist

    <key>wm_focus_on_new_window</key>
    <false/>

Before about OS 10.6, this could be accomplished from the command line:
defaults write org.x.X11 wm_focus_on_new_window -boolean false

Since then, the setting is overridden by X11 Preferences as above.

Billy K