Toggle window focus broken

Tinderbox Tasks
1

I’ve not needed to toggle window focus for a while. I am using: 10.1.2 and the opt-tab chord described here:

https://acrobatfaq.com/atbref10/index/Keyboard_Shortcuts/Individual_Shortcuts/Toggle_window_focus.html

is no longer working for me.

2

It works OK here,. for the selected note, it toggles, view pane.

Given the other issue you just reported, please:

  • check you have a note selected and showing in the text pane.
  • the text pane is visible and not hidden, e.g. by pulling the pane splitter bar all the way to the right you have your view set so there is no visible text pane. The shortcut described will not move the spitter bar.
    • if the text pane is too narrow to show $Text but the selected note has Displayed Attributes, then focus toggles but nothing appears to happen when $Text is selected (because $Text is not displayed!)
    • if the tab is in view-pane-only (i.e the splitter all the way at right) such that the selected note 's Displayed Attributes and $Text are hidden, the focus toggle works. You just can’t see it because you chose to hide the text pane—i.e. the appearnt problem is user error…
3

Also, be sure that opt-tab isn’t being intercepted as a shortcut in Settings, or by some keyboard macro program like Keyboard Maestro or Text Expander.

4

Thanks @eastgate . I don’t use any macro programs. This is the view I have from Settings:

key-settings
key-settings1414×1190 131 KB

5

Thanks @mwra . This view is an instance of my challenge. I have a selected note and I am not able to navigate using the key sequence:

tab-navigation
tab-navigation1920×1196 175 KB

Thanks for your comments.

6

OK, where in the UI is the input focus at present? It isn’t 100% clear from the grab—which otherwise is helpful, thanks! :slight_smile:

If input focus is in the $Text area, you can use ⌘⌥↑ to select the previous outline item or ⌘⌥↓ without shifting focus out of $Text. This avoids doing the toggle-cycle with ⌥⇥ of view/DA table/$Text to set focus in the view to then use the up or down arrow. Indeed the former pair of shortcuts were something I asked for back in v5 and were kindly added just for this scenario where you want to shift note focus via keys but without shifting focus from text pane to view pane.

The best place to discover shortcuts is probably the reverse look-up.

If none of these are working, either the focus isn’t where you think it is (and the key binding is thus missing in that context) or some other app/utility has registered that shortcut.

There is no easy way to know which app is handling a given shortcut at the current time. If you are aware of apps with competing claims on a shortcut, the answer is the first one to be opened ‘wins’ the shortcut. You’d think apple would have a method for checking this but it doesn’t. You can try the free “Shortcut Detective” app (here). It used to work but trying in macOS 15.4 just now it didn’t detect Tinderbox using ⌘⌥↑ (though the shortcut works).

So if a shortcut is registered by apps A and B, then if a is opened first (e.g. at sign-in to the OS) then A wins. But if B is loaded first, B wins the shortcut for the rest of the session. If the ‘winning’ app is closed before the end of the OS session, the losing app regains the shortcut.