Even if I have pressed an item in overview and have something in the “selected item” box, if then I press somewhere in space hotkeys stop to work on this target(if I press on “selected item” too), UI asks me to select what to approach…
Same with “orbiting” and “keep at range”.
I find it very confusing, and even worse I have discovered it after starting to PVPing so it annoys me quite a bit.
Any suggestions? Is it a bug? Or I am doing something wrong?
Same thing with Dock or Jump (at a stargate). It’s very annoying. You shouldn’t have to focus a window to use a hotkey not shared with any other window
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Yeah, it’s annoying, but it also makes sense. Like you don’t want enter warp every time you type a “D” into chat, or keep at range on the last selected item in the overview when you’re trying to anchor from the watchlist. So, hotkeys should apply only the the window that has focus. Perhaps if Eve offered a stronger visual cue of which window had focus, people would have less problems with this.
Anyway, many hotkeys “work in reverse”, so I do that in order to eliminate this problem. In other words, (1) you can select an item from your overview and press “W” to orbit, or (2) you can press and hold “W”, then click on the object that you want to orbit. So, try out the second option. It will get rid of most* instances you pressing hotkeys and having nothing happen.
*Note: Using hotkeys with the watchlist is kind of flaky. Like, if I try to broadcast a target from the watchlist (for logi) and the window already has focus, it won’t work. So, I’ve gotten in the habit of clicking anywhere in space to make sure that the watchlist doesn’t have focus, and then broadcast the target.
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Issuing an approach, orbit or keep at range command does not require you to have the object selected or to even use the overview; you can simply hold down the hotkey and click on the object in space (assuming you don’t have the chat in focus) 
If the command fails to be issued the cause is most likely that one of your chat windows are in focus.
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Can not agree with you. Because chat(input widget by itself) and any other element which requires direct input(search input in hangar for example) is the the onliest which requires focus in terms of UI, and it is called “intercepting focus”(not sure how it must be called in English) which means it steals all inputs to itself in any other cases intercepting focuses are misused. For example if you need to navigate through some elements in some window - catch only those navigation buttons. And eve have some cues to this behavior, for example it do not allows you to reuse hotkeys lattert in different modes
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it would be fine if not super fast change of distances in fight i simply lose target from my visual focus. If I zoom too close it can escape view of camera it i zoom wider all brackets mashes up and it requires some precise mouse work. But overall you are probably right
Ignisilion is correct.
If I’m not focused on the chat window (i.e. the cursor is not there), then the keystroke should be interpreted as a hotkey. This ALREADY WORKS for F1 - F7. No reason it shouldn’t work for this.
This is how other games work. Played EQ for years. Hotkeys which are a single alpha character work just fine, and if I’m focused on chat window, they type the char there, and do not perform the hotkey function.
That’s why I just use the doubleclick for approach… Different game, different mechanics.
Which is fine if you want to approach.
I don’t. Usually, it’s Dock/Jump. No double-click alternative for that.
Seriously, this is not rocket science. Other games handle this just fine.
Usually there’s several gates you can jump through when you are in space, and a multitude of stations where you might want to dock.
So I think it’s perfectly normal that you have to choose a destination before using the hotkey. And because of microing issues I’m not convinced that the game should keep in mind too many “old” selections, resulting in unwanted actions in battle or fleets.
It’s EVE, not “other games” 
Of course there are many different approaches to gameplay in the world of space simulations, and you may claim that’s better because you are used to it, but because of all consquences a change would have to a balanced system, I don’t think they will change much.
tl;dr: Get used to it.
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Incorrect. If I have a route specified, when I make the first jump, the next system is already selected in the overview. I should be able to hit the hotkey for jump, and go.
OBVIOUSLY, if I don’t have a destination selected, then nothing should happen. Use a little common sense.
Oh, you mean autopilot.
Well, there is some reason why there’s no decent auto piloting service in EVE. Of course, that was one of my first ideas when I started playing EVE: Why the heck is that “autopilot” that bad?
Very soon I learned: Thank god the autopilot is bad.
So to return to the OP’s initial question: It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
BTW: I find your lack of faith disturbing.
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Not autopilot. Please follow along.
I jump. The next jump system is already selected in the overview, if I have a route set up.
But pressing the hotkey for Jump doesn’t work, because the window isn’t focused. Even though that hotkey doesn’t do anything else in any other window.
Not a feature. Not a bug, per se. Just bad design.
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Every route setting is an autopilot function, I’m afraid.
And the autopilot must have been quite powerful at the beginning of the game. As you say, for a programmer it’s quite easy to automate all the travelling in a computer game.
Problem: That made it very easy for botting and afk players, there was virtually no way to disturb their automated travels through space. Thus autopilot was severely nerfed, so you MUST use mouse in any way, for it is much harder to be automatized by scripts.
I don’t care if you agree or not, but it’s a feature - for these who are in competition to those who let scripts and batches earn their ISKies in New Eden.
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Well, I’ll see your “I don’t care” and raise you an “I don’t care that you don’t care”
Oh, and it’s really cute how you think the need to focus a window is stopping botting s/w 
easy solution, without hotkeys: you manually leftclick the first (yellow) gate of the route on your overview. Click the Jump icon in the Selected Item window. From then onwards, the next (yellow) gate in the route will always be selected automatically and you only have to click that same Jump icon after every gate transfer. Check it out
Being honest you are completely wrong. Automatian of mouse presses is just as easy as keystokes =) It was made 20 year ago in early times of the “Ultima Online” and work fine till now. Not sure i have right to explain in depth how easy it is =) So anti-boting explanation is pretty weak.
And anyway i started this tread about combat hotkeys. And i am sure we aren’t going to discuss combat bots with AI and stuff. There is no way to save game against such things and there is not so much value in them to be made. And even more one of solution I have in mind is to add a little macro which ensures overview in focus each tome i click hotkey =)
My explanation: “Is is just made so”. Like many other thing in the EVE. It looks like this is not so much a thing for most players and those keyboard warriors like me just do not counts.
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Wadiest… you’re not telling me anything I don’t know. How do you think I’m doing it now? That is the current way it works.
What SHOULD also work is just using the hotkey for jump. Why support a hotkey if it doesn’t work? If I have to click the window to make the hotkey work, I can just click the button. Just lazy programming.
… he said with growing impatience.
You’re welcome.
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