Mac OS X Tiger in a Nutshell

Secure Keyboard Entry

Enabling this feature ensures that all typed characters go directly to the active shell window without risk of another application intercepting them. In high-security environments, Secure Keyboard Entry provides important protection against keystroke recording software attempting to capture passwords and other sensitive data.

If you are using some third-party hot-key or macro-enabling software, however, you might find that it no longer works while Secure Keyboard Entry is enabled.

Focus Follows Mouse

Users of other Unix-like operating systems are often accustomed to making their windows active just by passing the mouse pointer over them, without needing to click in the traditional Macintosh way. This behavior, called focus follows mouse , can be enabled for Terminal windows by executing the following defaults command:

                     defaults write com.apple.Terminal FocusFollowsMouse -string YES

After issuing that command, you’ll need to exit any open Terminal windows for the focus follows mouse behavior to take effect. When you open a new Terminal window, the behavior is activated by the shell; open another window and move the mouse between windows to see the effect. Once activated, any Terminal window beneath the pointer, whether the Terminal is the front-most application or not, will accept text entry. The window won’t, however, be raised to the front. To disable the focus follows mouse feature, run the following command and then exit any open Terminal windows:

                     defaults write ...