Re: Moving the focus off a client window

[Sam Spilsbury <smspillaz gmail com>]

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 12:26 AM, Nathaniel Smith <njs pobox com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Sam Spilsbury <smspillaz gmail com> wrote:
>> I'd like to be able to have some kind of protocol to handle this case,
>> and initially I thought that maybe I could change the input hint on
>> the client window to FALSE and then send a synthetic FocusIn event to
>> the client window, at which point the window manager would receive
>> that and move the focus off to something else since that window is not
>> allowed to be focussed. However, the ICCCM is vague on this point, and
>> says that where WM_TAKE_FOCUS is not present in WM_PROTOCOLS and
>> InputHint is FALSE in WM_HINTS then the window has "No Input - The
>> client never expects keyboard input. An example would be xload or
>> another output-only client. ". However, it does not state what should
>> happen should the client explicitly request input focus, which is what
>> is going on here. I would imagine in this case that should a client
>> request input focus to a window that does not allow input, that the
>> window manager should focus the next appropriate window, whether that
>> be a transient window, an ancestor, a group member or the next most
>> active window.
>>
>> What does everyone think of something like the following:
>>
>>  * Client changes InputHint to false and removes WM_TAKE_FOCUS from WM_PROTOCOLS
>
> It seems to me that this should be sufficient -- just clarify the spec
> to make sure it's clear that a window can transition from focusable to
> not-focusable. I don't see what the stuff below adds:
>

Right, although my question is more a case of "what if a client sets
the input focus to itself if it specifically requested that it was not
to be focused"

>>  * Client sends a synthetic FocusIn event to its own window with the
>> window member being set to the client, mode being NotifyNormal and
>> detail being NotifyDetailNone
>>  * WM gets the FocusIn event on the client window, sees that InputHint
>> is false, moves the focus off to the next appropriate window.
>

I suppose this could be replaced with "client updates the WM_HINTS
property" and the WM responds by moving the focus off the client.

> -- Nathaniel
>



-- 
Sam Spilsbury