Auto-focus cursor?

January 18, 2003 9:17 AM

I am a true newbie, but I do have a request. I was inspired by this and in particular, his mention of auto-focusing cursors. Can we do that with MetaFilter? Most obviously on the login screen, but I'm sure it has uses in posting.
posted by ajpresto to Feature Requests at 9:17 AM (15 comments total)

Here's the quote:

(I feel a bit like that guy from the 90s who campaigned to have all the search engines auto-focus vistors' cursors into the search box. But look what happened: He won.)
posted by ajpresto at 9:18 AM on January 18, 2003

The search page has been set to do this for the past couple years. Where else do you want it?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:49 AM on January 18, 2003

Oh, just to be clear, if I added it to the posting box, IE for windows (don't know about other browsers, but that's what I tested the behavior on in the past) auto-scrolls a web page to the focused form element. That means that if you load a thread with 20 comments that auto-focuses to the posting form, the page would immediately automatically to the bottom, which isn't the kind of page behavior I would want to have on the site.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:51 AM on January 18, 2003

I agree, I think this feature is not particularly useful here. It's good on Google, since 99.9% of the time you want to search straight away.. but MeFi? There could be 101 things I'd want to do or click on. Besides, not everyone who reads the comments wants to comment themselves.

Sorry ajpresto! :-)
posted by wackybrit at 10:05 AM on January 18, 2003

There could be 101 things I'd want to do or click on.
Yeah, like clicking on a doo-dah.
posted by ginz at 11:22 AM on January 18, 2003

Matt, could you give focus to the username field on the login pages, that'd be nice.
posted by yonderboy at 12:35 PM on January 18, 2003

Exactly how lazy are you people?

:)
posted by Hildago at 1:09 PM on January 18, 2003

Could you make it so that chicks autofocus on my doo-dah?
posted by wackybrit at 1:10 PM on January 18, 2003

Most obviously on the login screen

You mean people log out?
posted by boomchicka at 1:31 PM on January 18, 2003

boomchicka... if i log in at work, which is fairly rare, i find myself logged out when i get home. at least, i'm 80% sure this is the case. 15% unsure and 5% utterly convinced I am entirely mistaken. The non-existant remainder should be ignored.

The spell check would like to call you broomstick.
posted by nthdegx at 7:13 PM on January 18, 2003

Well, kindly ask it to refrain from doing so. Although if it makes the spell check happy, what the hey, I've been called worse.

My comment was actually a facetious one, though that is a strange phenomenon you experience. I think I'm perma-logged in everywhere I visit (work pc, home pc, home laptop) though, so what do I know from login issues. Ha ha, it's probably your work's sysadmin screwing with you.

-- fondly, broomstick
posted by boomchicka at 7:30 PM on January 18, 2003

alas - my work's sysadmin isn't that competent.
posted by nthdegx at 2:39 AM on January 19, 2003

This boomchicka, It vibrates?
posted by darkpony at 6:20 AM on January 19, 2003

This boomchicka, It vibrates?

Heh. Sooo many answers to that, so few of them in good taste.
posted by boomchicka at 12:21 PM on January 19, 2003

Auto-focus is, in almost all cases, a real pain. I prefer to control the mouse myself and can afford the .0000000001 of a calorie that it takes to move the cursor to where I want it. If you don't think that autofocus is useless except for places such as login screens where there is really only one possible function of the page, change your mouse settings to have it autofocus on buttons etc and see how much it drives you nuts.
posted by dg at 3:02 PM on January 19, 2003