Re: forcing window/dialog focus until actioned

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Tom Knowles <tom peters co uk> writes: 
> I'm using fvwm2 becuase it seemed to offer the leanest, least interfering and 
> most appropriate bed. I have tried the others, but without spending 
> unavailable time I've found nothing more suitable to this kind of
> project.

You could also try running with no window manager at all, though you
probably need to add some calls to XSetInputFocus() to your code then 
to move the focus around.

> 1. In general, is there a way of forcing a dialog or popup to remain visible 
> until responded to?
> I've found that if a generic prompt/question is called, it is not really 
> feasible to say which window will be underneath it and that touching same 
> window, particularly the perimeter will cause that window to blot out the 
> prompt which, as it happens, may be a necessary in-line function. The prompt 
> is modal and thus, as far as the user is cocerned the app is frozen.

If you call gtk_window_set_transient_for() to make the dialog
transient for the parent, many window managers will then keep the
dialog on top of the parent. I can't say whether fvwm2 is such a WM.

> I tried using popup rather than toplevel, which looks and performs more 
> appropriately, but, the popup seems transparent to desktop menu clicks and, 
> worse, on some macihine/OS configurations is completely inactive.

POPUP means "ignore the window manager" in effect. So no frame on the
window, window manager will not focus the window on click, etc.

You could use POPUP but you'd need to do some of your own work, such
as XSetInputFocus().

> 2. Is it possible to lose the mouse cursor, it just gets in the way
> !

Set it to a 1x1 pixmap with a 1x1 mask that masks off the pixel. Then
it will be invisible.

(To lose it for the whole screen you usually need to set the cursor
for the root window, after the window manager has already done so.)

Havoc