Mac: clicking between programs requires 2 clicks

Question

This is a simple thing but I don't see it in settings.

So, I'm in my new Mac, working in a program like Safari or Firefox. I have a window in the background for another program, and it has a button. I want to click that button but have to click twice, once to switch programs and once to click the button.

I want my mouse to be "hotter" than that. Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

Somewhat useful: you can hold Command and click to a non-focused window. The click will go through, however, the window will not get focus. It's useful if you have a partially covered window in the background, and you want to keep it that way, while clicking it.

BUT, if you have two windows side by side, which are not covered, it is UTTERLY frustrating that you have to click TWICE every time you want interact with them interchangeably. It would be really nice if there was an option to disable this "feature"...

Answer 2

This is called click-through, and guidelines for its usage are covered in Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. By default, all Cocoa controls support click-through and the feature must be turned off by the software developer. Some reasons to turn it off are covered in the Guidelines:

Avoid providing click-through for an item or action whose result might be dangerous or undesirable. Specifically, avoid enabling click-through for an item that:

• Performs a potentially harmful action that users can’t cancel (for example, the Delete button in Mail)
• Performs an action that is difficult or impossible to cancel (such as the Send button in Mail)
• Dismisses a dialog without telling the user what action was taken (for example, the Save button in a Save dialog that overwrites an existing file and automatically dismisses the dialog)
• Removes the user from the current context (for example, selecting a new item in a Finder column that changes the target of the Finder window)

To answer the actual question: No. There is no global setting for this. While it could be possible for an individual application to implement settings for itself, it's not something that I've seen.

Edit: To answer the other part of the question, is there any way to do this?, the answer is sort of. If you search for Mac focus follows mouse or Mac sloppy focus, you'll find some utilities such as Zooom/2 that focuses on each window as the mouse passes over. That is something that would annoy some people, but may work for you.