[openbox] Losing focus

Johan Vromans jvromans at squirrel.nl
Mon Nov 19 02:29:37 EST 2012


Jim Rees <rees at umich.edu> writes:

> This doesn't work as well as it should. There are a couple of patches that
> help but I don't know if they cure your particular problem. Try "Allow focus
> stealing just after launching an app" by Brian Mattern dated 13 Sep 2012.

Thanks for the suggestion. I applied this patch but it doesn't solve the
problems.

BTW, an easier way to show the problematic behaviour:

 - Open an instance of firefox, move the cursor into its window if
   necessary.
   The firefox main window has keyboard focus.
 - Type Control-S. The Save dialog appears on top of the main window.
   The Save dialog now has focus.
 - Type Escape. The Save dialog disappears.
   Although the cursor is stil in the main window, this window does
   not have keyboard focus. If fact, no window has.

OTOH, this works fine:

 - Position the cursor in an application window.
   The application window has focus.
 - Start a new application, e.g. xterm, using a shortcut key.
   The xterm window has focus.
 - Exit xterm with Control-D. The xterm window disappears and whichever
   window the cursor is now in gets focus. If the cursor is not in an
   application window (e.g., on the background) then the previous window
   gets focus.

So it seems that the problematic behaviour occurs with dialog type
windows only.

Does this provide some clues?

-- Johan


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