Xfce Forum

eev2

Member

Registered: 2023-02-24

Posts: 16

[xfwm4] Raise vs focus. Is this a bug?

Hi all.

It seems that xfwm4 interprets raising a window to also mean that the window must receive input focus. This shouldn't be the case, in my opinion. I just want to:

1. Make sure I understood this issue correctly before I report to the developers

2. See if there a way to achieve the correct behavior by changing some of the xfwm4 settings

To demonstrate what I mean, first install xdotool and then open a text editor. In my case I open xed. In the terminal type

xdotool windowraise $(xdotool search --onlyvisible --class "^xed$")

In the above code, replace xed with the class of your text editor, which you can get by the command xprop in a terminal window and then clicking in the editor window.

You will notice, after running the command, that the text editor has input focus, meaning typing will appear in the text editor. This shouldn't be the case. What I expected to see is the text editor window to be on top of all other windows, but that window should not have input focus, i.e., typing should appear in the terminal window. According to the documentation here,

The XRaiseWindow function raises the specified window to the top of the stack so that no sibling window obscures it. If the windows are regarded as overlapping sheets of paper stacked on a desk, then raising a window is analogous to moving the sheet to the top of the stack but leaving its x and y location on the desk constant. Raising a mapped window may generate Expose events for the window and any mapped subwindows that were formerly obscured.

there is no mention that a raised window should have input focus. In fact, the same documentation here indicates that there is a separate function for a window to receive focus. Any thoughts?