[EebyGeeby]

Is it just me, or has Apple (and OS X developers in general) gotten a lot worse with buttons getting focus by default? I mean, in OS 9 (THANK GOODNESS IT'S DEAD!!!) you could usually depend on the correct button having focus when you needed it there. In OS X, however, apps seem to just, well, not care. I like pressing <ENTER> to navigate through dialogs sometimes, I don't want to have to use my mouse to click every single button, every single time.

Take installers for instance (the default Apple installer; not VISE or others); a user is forced to actually click on most of the CONTINUE dialogs to finish the process. Understandably developers want users to have to read and actually click on LICENSE AGREEMENTS and the like, but for the rest, developers, PLEASE SET YOUR FOCUS!!!

. . .implementing button tabbing would be nice (I've done it, it works) too, but I won't push it.

[smeger]

You're absolutely right, and it annoys me, too.

What's even worse is that I've come across quite a few places where there is a default button (the blue throbbing one), but hitting return doesn't have the same effect as clicking that button. That's annoying.

The other problem is that the concept of "first reponder" seems to be a bit more nebulous in OS X. In OS 9, there was a firm rule: whatever can accept keyboard input should be surrounded by a blue focus ring. In OS X, some apps use a ring, some use a different highlight color, some don't show it at all.